Programming Languages

To do programming there are few things that you need.

First of all you need a programming language.
(That is the whole point. Isn't it?)
A compiler or an interpreter. This depends on the approach you take. Or in other words what programming language that you are going to use and for what purpose.

There is a wide selection of programming languages to go for. Following are some significant ones.


Microsoft Visual Studio 2005





This is a widely used IDE for programming. It supports an array of programming languages such as C#,VB,C++,J# and ASP.NET for web development. Notice that this is an IDE(Integrated Development Environment) so it is made to do programming faster and make the life easier for programmers.
It has drag and drop user interface design,
Easier database connectivity,
Easier API(Application Programming Interface) integration and
Easier management of source files.
One more thing that I like about VS 2005 is it's debugger that allows you to view a complete profile of an object while in the debug mode and the ability to view inside dataset objects while debugging the code.
VS 2005 is meant to be used with the .NET Framework. The .NET Framework consists of an assortment of libraries that can be directly used for coding. Using the .NET Framework save time and gives the ability to create programs with a little amount of code. But the downside is that in order to run programs using the .NET Framework you need to have it installed in the computer.
These features are great but keep in mind these are intended for easing up the programming work. To really learn you have to get down and do the coding by your self. Auto generated code means a little when you come to learning.


Java



Java is the preferred language for web developers and for cross platform development. Java do not compile the program to machine language right away. Instead it compile the source file into an intermediate file called Java Byte Code. This byte code is then executed using the JVM(Java Virtual Machine) or the JRE(Java Runtime Environment).

OK now, what is JVM and JRE?
These are used to interpret java byte code into machine code of the computer . It can be defined as a computer within a computer. All java programs run on top the virtual machine. Only the virtual machine can understand the java byte code. And here is the thing. When you want to run the program in a different platform you don't need to recompile the code. The java virtual machine of that platform will execute the java byte code without much problem. Notice that only the virtual machine is changed according to the platform and once compiled java code can run platform independently. JVM and JRE differs slightly. The JVM is the virtual machine that runs java byte code and the JRE consists of the JVM and some additional libraries for support.

When using java there are some IDEs that can be used.








PHP



This language is used for programming web applications. PHP is a scripting language and requires a web server with php module to execute the code. It is a very powerful and an easy to use language. And best of all it's free.