JAVA and Other Languages

Alpha Omega · Post by **Alpha Omega** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:31 pm

Since this is a C++ community what do you guys think of JAVA and other programming languages compared with C++. I am fairly new to programming in general... just wondering what all the other languages are good for.

Sylence · Post by **Sylence** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:13 pm

Java is great when it comes to web applications (not websites. real applications). C (and C++) are good when you need to operate as near as possible to the hardware (writing a driver would be such situation).

However this is just my opinion. I bet it won't take long until someone comes and says "Jave rocks and C++ is a pain in the a**". It's almost as bad as religions.

When you get more experience you will notice that a language is not that good for doing something (for example using c++ for generating dynamic webpages would be *arg* but it is possible).

Or in short: Every language has it's pros and cons. It always depends on what you want to do. Based on that you choose the language.

Valmond · Post by **Valmond** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:14 pm

Java is one of the best languages, if you want to know how not to program (IMHO).

C/C++ can be quite hard for a beginner, you might want to try PHP (C-like) web programming, you'll get things up fast and when you have learned the basics try taking on C/C++.

Well that's my 5 cents anyway

Dorth · Post by **Dorth** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:54 pm

One of the first language you learn should have pointers, references, memory managment and templates. Why? Cuz it teaches you to think in a more machine friendly way that'll make your code that much faster even if you move to a higher level language.

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 10:56 pm

Java is cross platform...
not like C/C++, Java is REAL cross platform !!!
with C/C++ you'll need to compile the app for each platform you wanna use it on and if you use system specific libs (like the Windows api) it's no longer cross platform...
a Java app can run on any hardware where Java is installed on, no need to compile it for a specific system...
this is done by tokenising (right term?) the source and this tokenised code will be compiled at runtime token by token on the machine you start it on...
but because each token is only compiled when its executed, Java is pretty slow compared to other languages...
Java was not designed for internet apps in general, but for any hardware that can have a processor...
IIRC one of the developers explained it like this: "Java was designed so your mower in the garden can tell your coffee machine in the kitchen to tell you that the woman next door takes a topless sunbath in the garden"

well, if you need high performace/speed you should use C/C++, it's one of the fastest languages (the fastest would be machine code/assembler)...