Looking For A Programming Language?

Question

Hey,

I'm an advanced scripter in batch development.
I have found many uses of commandline utilities scripted by me and my teams in the past.
But we can all admit that commandline utilities are fading into the past and cannot do the modern jobs we would like to perform without such effort.

For example, it doesn't have a very good user interface, but thats the point of commandline utilities.
We want a new language, with gui compatibility that can do all commandline can and more.

I've downloaded visual basic but i'm finding it hard to know my way around.
i'm not interested in creating calculations etc. although i can do so in commandline scripts.

I'm more interested in scripting better beneficial programs that could save user's time,
something unique.

I would like to know the easiest programming language to do as i have mentioned WITH some support and guidelines or a website that provides such.

Thanks In Advance

Answer 1

The old VB, VB6, is about the easiest GUI-oriented language there is, with Delphi ("visual Pascal") a very close second. C (any of its dialects, C++, C#) is a LOT more difficult. So is Java.



Support? You have to know programming to write programs. No language, in any form, comes with programming instructions. Programming is programming. The best you get are tutorials on the syntax, but you're not going to get a tutorial on how to make a linked list in VB, you'll get code, maybe, and maybe even a few comments in the code. But if you need a linked list, you have to have learned linked lists before you try to write one - in any language.



If you don't understand programming (and it's possible to build some pretty powerful batch files without knowing a thing about programming), no language is going to be easy, since you're going to be trying to learn programming when you should be learning syntax.

Answer 2

You surely can make "professional" looking applications with C++ or any other language you choose. Just because there's no standard support for GUI with C++ doesn't mean that you can't make apps look okay -- it will just take more effort than a language like Java, with internal graphics support. Realize that most console games and most of Microsoft's programs (e.g. Windows, MS Office) are coded in C++, but they don't solely use the standard library either. WinAPI / DirectX can be very powerful when used correctly.

Answer 3

I am not too sure what you mean, but I would think that Python is just the thing you are looking for. It has such a great interface with the Python ide and is so capable for many tasks. The more I use Python, the more I am finding that I want to do everything with it. I do calculations with Python and now I am producing websites with Django, and open source web framework based on Python. I have written a 1000 line gui program for uploading bird-lists that was non-trivial in nature. It can do a lot.



Check out Dive Into Python for a good, fast intro to the language.



http://www.python.org/

Answer 4

I'd go with Java. It's easy to develop rich GUIs with Swing (Java's graphical API) and there are tons of free tutorials online. It can do anything your batch scripts can. Plus Java and a very good IDE (Eclipse) are FREE. If you're as good a scripter as you say, you should be able to pick up Java quickly.



An online tutorial is referenced below, but I also recommend getting your hands on "Head First Java", a very good Java book. It'll have you up to speed in Java in no time.



FWIW: I've used C++ and a smattering of other languages over the years, so I'm not a Java bigot. I just think it's the best language for your needs.



HTH!

Answer 5

Microsofts vb is one of the easiest languages to learn I've found but if your more comfortable with C you might want to try Visual C