Computer Science/Programming

For more in depth information on a wider variety of topics, check out the programming/tech links on the links page.

Java

Eric Raymond, in How to be a hacker, suggests that Java would make a good second language. He recommends Python as a first language. I won't presume to differ much, not being an expert programmer. But, for those of us who may be going to school, where it is probably unlikely that Python is on the course-list (depending on the school, I suppose), Java may be the default first language, relegating Python to something you learn in your spare time (read: later).

That being said, if you are still reading this you are probably learning, or thinking about learning, the Java programming language. All you need to do this is to download Sun's Java2 SDK (software development kit, for those who like to know what things stand for), and be able to use a simple text editor (depending on your system, Notepad, Wordpad, vi, emacs) and a command-line (DOS, bash, ksh, insert your favorite shell here). For most people that will probably be Notepad and DOS by default.

Another alternative is to use an IDE. I have not used many but, many people like netBeans. NetBeans is a free, open source IDE (integrated development environment, again, for the acronym lovers) written entirely in Java. It will take a little effort just to learn to use the IDE, but most of it will be fairly intuitive. As well, their website will have tutorials, and O'Reilly and Associates publish a nice book about it, called (in a fit of oreillian creativity) `NetBeans: the definitive guide'. I'm not sure if it's definitive; it may be the only guide. It's a good book. NetBeans can also be extended to act as an IDE for C/C++, HTML, XML, and maybe even other things. I'm betting against a COBOL module, however. A VB extension would be sort of funny, but someone would probably get sued, and who wants to put all that work into an IDE for BASIC?

A good start to beginning programming in Java is to take your textbook, and put it in the closet. Then get a good book, instead, like O'Reilly's Learning Java, which taught me more, and quicker, than any of my textbooks. If possible, you may want to keep your textbooks nice enough looking to sell back to the bookstore as soon as your course is done. If they are anything like my Java textbooks, they are a collosal waste of paper.

That's all for now. Go read something else.

Python

I won't be adding to the Python page any time soon (sorry!) but you can find all you want to know about Python, and some you didn't, thru Python.org

Perl

There's more than one way to do it. One way is to look up Perl.com or CPAN.org. The other is to wait until I get around to adding a perl tutorial here. Given the amount of spare time I have (not much), I'd follow the links for now.

C/C++

Is there any information on this page at all? Not much, yet. Search for C.