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programming-for-dummies

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Chapter 3: Types of Programming<br />

Languages<br />

In This Chapter<br />

Deciding on your first language<br />

Discovering teaching languages<br />

Understanding curly bracket languages<br />

Determining artificial intelligence languages<br />

Figuring out scripting languages<br />

Understanding database query languages<br />

Comparing different <strong>programming</strong> languages<br />

After you understand how to plan, organize, and create a program through<br />

one or more methodologies (such as structured <strong>programming</strong>, eventdriven<br />

<strong>programming</strong>, or object-oriented <strong>programming</strong>), you’re ready to start<br />

utilizing a particular <strong>programming</strong> language.<br />

Just as your native spoken language can shape the way you think and speak,<br />

so can your first computer <strong>programming</strong> language influence the way you<br />

think, design, and write a computer program.<br />

You can choose from literally thousands of different <strong>programming</strong> languages<br />

with obscure names, like Icon, Algol 60, APL, Forth, and Scheme. Although<br />

you can understand <strong>programming</strong> by using any <strong>programming</strong> language, it’s<br />

probably best to know at least one of the more popular <strong>programming</strong><br />

languages, such as BASIC or C.<br />

Knowing a popular <strong>programming</strong> language, like BASIC or C, simply gives you<br />

more opportunities to work. More people use BASIC and C, which means<br />

more jobs are available <strong>for</strong> programmers who know BASIC or C. Just as<br />

knowing English, Chinese, Spanish, or Arabic allows you to travel and speak<br />

with more people around the world (compared to knowing Swahili, Mayan,<br />

or Eskimo), so can knowing BASIC or C give you more opportunities to work<br />

and write programs anywhere you go.

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