How to start programming - guides and links for many languages

[Wybiral]

Since there have been a ton of people asking for information and advice on various languages, including the popular "which is best" question, this thread has been started to alleviate those types of post's be providing a comprehensive list of resources on various languages.

Each reply will be a different language, if someone has something they would like to contribute to a language which already exists, please try to PM the original poster of that language instead of adding another reply with your contribution (to keep things readable and simple).

Please do not pollute this thread with questions and side comments, the point of this thread is to be a collection of links and we are trying to keep it as clean as possible. If a language isn't on here, and you know some good links for it, add it to the list. If you'd like to add something to a language that exists, please PM it to the original poster of that language so this thread doesn't become polluted or turn into a flame war or anything... Thanks!

This thread is NOT a chat thread, if you don't have relevant links to post, please don't!!!

~~~ Index ~~~
Ada
Assembly
bash
C
C++
C#
Common Lisp
D
FreeBASIC
Go (Golang)
Java
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Squeak
Tcl
Vala
Google


Credit to po0f for the idea to start this post, celsofaf for the idea to create this index, and aks44 for helping me clean it up!

EDIT my slavik: No idea why this wasn't stickied before. Please keep discussion relevant to this thread (Links and info only). For help, start a new thread.

[Wybiral]

C++

Tutorials/references:

GCC compiler documents: (all) Very useful documentation on Gcc
Thinking in C++ (beginner): a very good introduction to standard C++; book available for free download; also available in print
Teach Yourself C++: (beginner-intermediate) A very thorough C++ tutorial (basically a free book)
Programmer Heaven C++ Page: (beginner-advanced) Tons of useful links
C++ FAQ LITE (intermediate-advanced): covers a wide variety of C++ topics (a C++ introduction is suggested before reading)
cPlusPlus: (intermediate) Great C++ reference (Covers many subjects)
Cpp Reference: (advanced) Covers standard C library, and STL
MakeFile Tutorial: (beginner-intermediate) Makefile introduction tutorial
Ubuntu GameDev Wiki: (intermediate) Helpful game development HOWTO's

Useful library tutorials/homepages:

Linux Journal Article: (advanced) Article on embedding python into C++ programs
wxWidgets: Cross platform GUI library
GTK: Cross platform GUI library
Lode's Computer Graphics Tutorials: (advanced) Very interesting graphical tutorials with C++ source code
SDL: Great cross platform library (Graphics (2d/3d), sound, input/output, more...)
LightHouse3d GLUT page: (intermediate) Great info on GLUT (Cross platform OpenGL toolkit)
NeHe: (intermediate) Amazing OpenGL examples (most of which include linux compatible downloads (including makefiles))

I'll add more to this later, and anyone who wants me to add something, PM me a link and a description.

If you're having trouble compiling... Install the build-essential package!!!

[finer recliner]

some of my favorite references:

Lots of Languages:
http://www.freetechbooks.com/
http://freecomputerbooks.com/computerbooks.html

Web Languages/Scripting:
http://w3schools.com/

Cheat Sheets:
http://mypage.bluewin.ch/yuppi/links/cheatsheets.html
http://www.digilife.be/quickreferences/quickrefs.htm

[tzulberti]

C Con Clase (all): Lots of info about C++ in Spanish
CProgramming (basic - intermidiate): Info about C++

[pmasiar]

Why Python?

Python is a flexible language easier to learn than most other languages, but still powerful enough to be useful for solving real-life problems, used from MIT for learning programming to NASA and Google. Main project homepage is http://python.org/

You don't need to spend much money on Python: Python is open-source and free, including many online books, free GUI IDEs and many, many libraries.

One of reasons why python is so simple to learn is the python shell - interactive environment, where you can enter python statements one by one and evaluate them, try them, try function or methods and see results immediately. So you spend less time reading documentation and more time trying how it works. You can try Python from LiveCD, If you cannot, check Try Python website - please be considerate and don't abuse it!

Python books.

• To get the taste of Python: Start with elementary introduction to IDLE (python shell, no previous knowledge is necessary) and Instant Hacking
• For beginners: this is best tutorial I found. Another good one is **** Baldwin's tutorial or Alan Gauld Tutorial. I also maintain Learn Python wiki with links to even more introductory lessons, including data structures and task to solve (both simple and more challenging).
• For skilled programmers (people who know another programming language reasonably well):Dive Into Python, or Guido van Rossum's tutorial will get you started - and you will be surprised how simple programming can be.
• Screencast presentations; at showmedo.com - from download/install to 20 minute TurboGears Wiki web app.

Python video
http://showmedo.com/videos/python
Python IDEs

One of the controversial features of Python is - whitespace is significant. As a result, you need to properly indent your code or you have syntax error. Beginners are often baffled by it, but experienced programmers will confirm that properly aligned code is major contribution to readability. Many big projects and big companies using languages with flexible whitespace (C/C++/Java/perl etc) have internal standards of intedation and programs, formatting code to enforce it. So Python standard way of handling whitespace is part of industry best practices, ignored by most languages.

As a result, in Python is very unwise to mix spaces and tabs using plain text editor like notepad. Using decent programming editor, or even better some IDE, is strongly advised. Python comes with standard IDE, called IDLE (it is inside joke from Monty Python - yes, Python programmers are serious about having fun). Other good IDEs are SPE and Eric, both installable via apt or Synaptic.

What is Python good for?

Python is universal language, good for anything except kernel hacking. It allows you to use OOP - Object oriented programming, but does not forces you to do it. Even if for your application the raw speed is critical, you can use Python for it: (1) design a prototype in Python. 92)find the bottlenecks (5% of the code taking 80% of the time) and (3) rewrite those in C, which links easily with Python. Or you can compile source to standard executable by PsyCo or ShedSkin.

Python code is compiled at first run into bytecode (optimized for later interpretation), and much attention is given to increase speed of basic functions of the language. Compilers to executables are avilable.

Python comes with many libraries included, and many more external libraries are available, like numpy for numerical processing, RPy for access to R (professional free statistical package), wxPython to build platform-independent GUI apps, many web app frameworks like Django and TurboGears

Python Philosophy
Python has couple of "mantras":

• readability is important - Python is optimized to be readable for humans first, even if it makes computer to work extra hard. Not too hard though: syntax is kept very simple by design.
• There should be one obvious way to do it right - so most obvious way and shortest (less lines of code ) to do something is often the fastest and most preferred.
• batteries included - many usefull libraries are included, and in every new release new libraries are added (after being stable for some time)
• speed is not a problem until it is a problem - don't do premature optimization based on your guess what is bottleneck: do it right first, and optimize what you can measure.

Who uses Python

Python is very popular with smart geeks and smart companies: Google, NASA and others. Python is preferred language for Ubuntu development.

[eteran]

Tcl

The Tool Command Language is an easy to learn scripting language, but still very powerful.
Its designed to have self explaining, human readable sourcecode.

References:

• The Official Homepage
• Tcl Commands Manual
• The Tcler's Wiki
• Wikipedia article - Includes alot of extra links also
• Wikibooks Tcl

Interesting Packages:

• mysqltcl - MySQL server access commands for Tcl

Distribution:

ActiveTcl, is a Tcl/Tk distribution from ActiveState available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX.

Although you can buy the development kits, the free distribution contains a complete and ready-to-use Tcl/Tk environment with lots of packages and widgets available. Documentation is available as Compiled HTML for Windows or as HTML converted from manual pages, for viewing locally.
Lots of demos for each package are also included.

Any online tutorial should teach the basics of the language, and once you are comfortable with it, all information needed can be found in the HTML documentation.

*note: I will add links for Tk also if you hand me some, as Tcl and Tk are close coupled. I just dont have personal experience with Tk yet.
*the distribution informations were kindly donated by the user Vox754, thanks

[derjames]

RUBY

A brief description of the Ruby programming language by Yukihiro Matsumoto creator of ruby
http://www.informit.com/articles/art...5&redir=1&rl=1

* * * * * * *Online books * * * *
http://www.ruby-lang.org
http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/
http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/?Chapter=00 thanks to 'Brazen ' for this link...

* * * * * * *web resources * * * *
Try Ruby from any web browser, NO installation required http://tryruby.hobix.com/
Documentation and help for Ruby http://www.ruby-doc.org/
The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide http://www.rubycentral.com/book/
Ruby Central http://www.rubycentral.com/
Ruby on rails http://www.rubyonrails.org/
Ruby user guide and tutorial http://www.rubyist.net/~slagell/ruby/index.html
Ruby Projects at RubyForge http://rubyforge.org/
Ruby bindings for Gnome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_programming_language
Ruby GArden http://wiki.rubygarden.org/Ruby
Ruby Tutorial by Daniel Carrera http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/ruby/0.3/index.html
Ruby developer centre at Yahoo! http://developer.yahoo.com/ruby/

Ruby GUI toolkits http://www.trug.ca/Ruby_GUI_Toolkits
Ruby HowTo create a GUI for your application http://www.arachnoid.com/ruby/RubyGUIProject/index.html
The Ruby-Gnome project. GUI programming http://ruby-gnome2.sourceforge.jp/

Ruby IDE for Eclipse platform http://rubyeclipse.sourceforge.net/index.rdt.html

Ruby entry at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_programming_language
Interview with Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) creator of Ruby http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/...1/29/ruby.html
Links and more links... http://rubycentral.com/links/index.html

This Link from Slashdot is about RUby and Lisp however it also includes a lively discussion of lots of languages:
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/14/0336213.shtml

[Wybiral]

OpenGL

It's not a programming language, but a really awesome+free 3d rendering API for multiple languages.

NeHe OpenGL tutorials: (beginner-advanced) Very nice tutorials/examples
LightHouse 3d: (intermediate-advanced) More nice tutorials
OpenGL Redbook: (advanced) Very thorough OpenGL book
OpenGL Bluebook: (advanced) Very thorough OpenGL reference
GameDev.net: (intermediate-advanced) More tutorials from gamedev
Code Sampler: (intermediate) Great tutorials and examples
Cone3d OpenGL Tutorials: (intermediate) Good tutorials/examples
gpWiki OpenGL: (intermediate) Game Programming Wiki's OpenGL page
Wikipedia's OpenGL page: (beginner) Links and info from wikipedia
Mesa3d: The standard opengl implimentation for linux users
freeGLUT: The standard implimention of GLUT for linux
SDL: A very nice library to enhance your OpenGL experience
Basic4SDL: An ubuntu friendly BASIC language specially designed for OpenGL+SDL

[<mawe>]

OCaml

General Resources:

http://caml.inria.fr/: OCaml's homepage
http://caml.inria.fr//cgi-bin/hump.en.cgi: The Ocaml Hump, something like Perl's CPAN
http://wiki.cocan.org: The OCaml Alliance, a group of OCaml industry users
http://caml.inria.fr/resources/index.en.html: Resources for OCaml users


Books, Tutorials:

http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreill...tml/index.html: Developing Applications with Objective Caml
http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/u3-ocaml/index.html: Using, Understanding and Unraveling the OCaml Language
http://www.ocaml-tutorial.org/: Objective Caml Tutorial
http://files.metaprl.org/doc/ocaml-book.pdf: Very good and up to date tutorial/book.

[samjh]

Java

What is Java?

Official technology website: http://java.sun.com/

Official Java consumer website: http://www.java.com/en/

Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%2...ng_language%29

Who uses Java?

NASA makes extensive use of Java. Java was its main programming language for the Mars Pathfinder mission, used extensively for data processing. The Hubble Space Telescope's control system interface is written in Java as well. NASA also uses Java for various day-to-day back-end processes in addition to its front-line space exploration programmes.

The number of Java users are too many to list. But a very small subset of larger organisations that use Java for products or research and development include: LG, Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Apple, IBM, Google, Xerox, Siemens, Motorola and Sun itself.

Various websites use Java and JSPs (Java Server Pages) to drive it:

Electronic Arts: http://www.ea.com/language.jsp
General Motors: http://www.gm.com/
Sun Microsystems: http://www.sun.com/
Walmart: http://www.walmart.com/

Some interesting applications developed purely in Java:

Art of Illusion 3D graphics suite (note: gallery is very outdated): http://www.artofillusion.org/
Azereus bittorrent client: http://azureus.sourceforge.net/
Eclipse IDE and rich client platform: http://www.eclipse.org
Netbeans IDE: http://www.netbeans.org
Tribal Trouble 3D real time strategy game: http://tribaltrouble.com/
Various high-quality Java games: http://www.puppygames.net/
Apache Tomcat web application server: http://tomcat.apache.org/
Jake2 (Java port of Quake2 engine): http://bytonic.de/html/jake2.html
Sillysoft (Risk clones using Java): http://sillysoft.net/
Limewire P2P program: http://www.limewire.com/english/content/home.shtml

So how to develop using Java?

The best basic Java tutorials anywhere on the web:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/index.html

Official documentations:
http://java.sun.com/reference/docs/index.html

API specifications only:
http://java.sun.com/reference/api/

Other tutorials and free e-books:
http://www.javacoffeebreak.com/books...ts/javanotesv3

Some good Java IDEs:
Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/
Netbeans - http://www.netbeans.org/
JEdit - http://www.jedit.org/

Installing Sun's Java in Ubuntu:
https://jdk-distros.dev.java.net/ubuntu-dev.html