Bit of a newbie question...

[mickdoc]

Don't shout at me for asking this...

I am a VB.NET programmer and have been for a wee while now but I wanna eventually learn a proper language... I have narrowed it down to either C# or C++ but I dunno which one.

I intend to write a game at some point (3 or 4 years away) but I also have an idea for a LAN Game admin application that will control almost every game (well, the usual suspects anyway!!) from one easy application (It actually involves a lot more than that tbh but you get the idea). I do a lot of application programming (mainly web-based, which is my background!!)

I was intending to learn C# and write my LAN application to help me learn but I dunno if it will be any use to me if I wanna do games in a few years too...

I really don't have a clue what to go for.

If I am gonna spend the next few years of my life learning to program using a C-based language I wanna make the right choice.

This may be a real newbie statement but is C# a possible replacement for C++ long term???? If so then I think C# would be better... but maybe its the newbie talking...

Anyway, any guidance would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks


Mick

[Andreas Masur]

[Moved thread]

[bytz]

You're likely to get a number of opinions on this, if not start a new thread like "C# or C++ for Game Developement"...

<:D Keep reading past the next inflamatory statement!!:D >
My personnal opinion is that C# is C++ toned down so that VB programmers think that they're learning a real language.
<End inflamatory remarks>

That's my gut feeling, but speaking from a technical viewpiont, C# (and .NET) have a number of useful qualities with could be of use in developing a distributed game. Imagine the game controller being a webservice... Possible downsides are that C# "seems" to be similar to VB in that it's more associated with a form, and it's execution speed may not meet the demands of a game. You can use C++ with .Net so that may help with the speed issues.

From a learning standpoint, it may be easier to learn C# and then learn C++, as this would introduce most of the C++/C syntax and most of the OO concepts -- C# has introduced some "extensions"; but you don't have the overhead of memory management and somethings are quite abit easier.

Will C# replace C++ -- don't know, depending on who you talk to, the battle still rages over Java, and I think that it will be the same for C#.

These are my opinions and as such may have no bearing on reality;) :D