Programming
The programming pages do not purport to be a one-stop programming reference or tutorial. If I had all the knowledge and time to write such a thing, I would, but you won't find it here. What you will find is the basics of the programming languages and technologies which interest me, and the obligatory links to more information about the same.
C/C++
"C came into being in the years 1969-1973, in parallel with the early development of the Unix operating system; the most creative period occurred during 1972. Another spate of changes peaked between 1977 and 1979, when portability of the Unix system was being demonstrated. In the middle of this second period, the first widely available description of the language appeared: The C Programming Language, often called the `white book' or `K&R' [Kernighan 78]. Finally, in the middle 1980s, the language was officially standardized by the ANSI X3J11 committee, which made further changes. Until the early 1980s, although compilers existed for a variety of machine architectures and operating systems, the language was almost exclusively associated with Unix; more recently, its use has spread much more widely, and today it is among the languages most commonly used throughout the computer industry."--Dennis Ritchie, The Development of the C language, © 1993, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
To program in C (or C++... or any programming language, for that matter) you need an appropriate compiler. The GNU Compiler Collection is included with most versions of linux, so if you are using one of those you are all ready to start learning. If you are using windows and you want to learn C, there are free Win32 C compilers, as well as proprietary IDE/Compiler bundles such as sold by Microsoft or Borland. I started learning on Windows systems using cygwin. Cygwin is basically a Win32 implementation of the Unix API... sort of like Wine in reverse. You can download and set up cygwin with gcc in it, and compile C or C++ programs on the command line just like you would in linux or unix.
Once you have a compiler available, you just need some sort of text editor. Most people from Windows backgrounds are familiar with simple editors like Notepad. Linux (or cygwin) has its own text editors, the most well-known being emacs and vi. Some people, especially those introduced to programming in high school or introductory college classes, really like to use Integrated Development Environments to program. I personally don't like these, as I don't want to learn a whole new program every time I turn around. I prefer to write and save my code in a text editor, and save them and compile them at the command line. You may prefer an IDE; if so, you'll have to find information about them elsewhere. I'm going to presume we're compiling at the command line.
Getting started in C and C++ is easy. Start your editor, make a new file called `hello.c' (or `hello.cpp' if you want to use C++) and type in:
/* C version */
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
printf "Hello, world!\n";
return 0;
}
or
// C++ version
#include <iostream>
int main() {
std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";
return 0;
}
They're almost the same, aren't they? Before analyzing these staggerinly difficult programs, let's run them, to make sure they work. After saving your file, go to the command line and type (from here, I'm just presuming the use of gcc, the easiest compiler to come by and get started with):
gcc -Wall -o hello ./hello.cthen press enter. If everything works right, you will just have another prompt appear. If you have errors in your program, it won't compile. Check to make sure it's typed exactly as above. If it is, and it still won't compile, make sure the file you're compiling is in your current working directory (type `ls' to check this, or `pwd' to check what directory you're in). If none of this works, you may presume that I typed it wrong (!) and go elsewhere for help, as I am obviously not much help at all.
Compiling the C++ version is just as easy, just type:
g++ -Wall -o hello ./hello.cppand press enter. Again, no messages and a new command prompt indicates success. Now, in either case, just type in `hello' and the program should run. If you want to write and compile both versions, you should change the `-o hello' to `-o hello2' or something different, otherwise it will overwrite your first executable.
For more information on C and C++ programming, see the links page, in the appropriate subsection. Have fun!
Perl
Perl was developed by Larry Wall, and has a large and fanatical following. The basics are also fairly easy to learn, if you have access to a computer with perl installed. Most linux distros will include it, just as they include gcc. If you use Windows and are either unwilling or unable to switch to linux, and still want to learn perl, do not be afraid! Perl is available for Win32 systems. If you just want to learn and think you may eventually switch to linux, unix, or *BSD, there is also cygwin, mentioned in more depth on the linux page.
Java
Java was developed by James Gosling, and other, for Sun Microsystems in the early 90's. It evolved from a language called Oak, which in turn grew out of something called the Green Project. With the history lesson out of the way, Java is an Object Oriented Programming language which runs on a virtual machine instead of being compiled into binary. This is supposed to make Java programs more portable than C/C++ programs. Java is enjoying great success, although it is not displacing C or C++ in the areas that those languages excel in; for the time being, Java is still too slow and too new to take over those areas. As far as taking over in the future, that may depend on whether or not the development community migrates to C# instead; C# is very similar to Java; in some ways it could be described as a Microsoft version of Java. In other words, Java is doing well, and is not going to disappear any time soon, but its longevity, in the sense that C has enjoyed, is yet to be determined.
Coldfusion
Coldfusion is actually a multitude of things. Primarily it is a web application server (Coldfusion) and a markup language for server-side processing of web-pages (<CFML>). Actually, Coldfusion is not an application server (I was actually sitting in a room listening to Ben Forta (macromedia coldfusion Senior Product Evangelist) say this, so don't flame me about it; he ought to know); Coldfusion is a Java Application. If you install CFMX on it's own it installs it's own Java Server for it to run from (JRun, I guess); or you can run CFMX overtop of any J2EE server, like macromedia's JRun or IBM's WebSphere, or whatever other J2EE servers there are. If none of this makes any sense; don't worry. Like most things in computing, if you don't understand it, you probably aren't required to know about it. Most of this stuff works in the background with out you needing to know it, anyway.
I include Coldfusion here because the company I work for has decided to develop web applications with it. I have not yet weighed in as to whether I would recommend it, but I will be learning it, so I may as well include (<cfinclude>, I guess) a CF section. Because I am working with it at work, this may actually wind up being one of the more extensive sections; I hope it becomes informative, or at least interesting.