Hey,
I agree with C:Amie about the C language.
Although it's a bit more difficult to learn than Basic, Pascal, etc...
It's VERY fast!
(easily 7x to 10x as fast as compiled Turbo Pascal and hundreds of times faster than interpreted BASIC
)
An experienced C/C++ programmer can write C code that is *almost* as fast as assembly code.
Run AWAY as fast as you can from JAVA, it's terrible... Not only is it cumbersome and bloated but it's extremely slow.
(and it won't run on an 200LX
)
C/C++ is the most used language in the open-source world, and it's available on all platforms, from the 200LX to your PC, Mac, UNIX / Linux, microcontrollers like the arduino, ESP etc...
There are also a massive amount of 3rd party C and C++ libraries out there, many open-source, that allow you to easily add support for example handling images etc... to your program.
C and C++ have the most and best quality/speed 3rd party libraries available.
Even though basic, python, pascal etc... are easier to learn, personally, I don't think it's much of a hassle starting your programming experience with learning C.
I recommend to buy a good book, like this one: C Programming: Absolute Beginner's Guide:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0789751984/ref=sr_1_5?tag=guru990f-20&keyw...
Start with the basics, write some text/character based programs to learn how the basics work,
how the include files for the standard C libraries that come with your compiler work, how the compiler and linker work, and how to debug your programs.
Once you know the basics, choose a good UI toolkit library
(I'd recommend JUCE
), learn C++
(it's an object-oriented "extension" of C, it resembles C's syntax, but has additional concepts added/modified for developing large applications more easily, through object oriented programming
).
Then, you can develop large modern Windows applications with graphical UIs and compile/run super fast applications on your contemporary PC, that are easy to port to MacOS X and Linux
And, for retro purposes, if you want to develop for the 200LX, download a copy of Borland C++, and you can develop your application on your PC in DOSBOX using your comfortable keyboard and mouse,
and, when ready, just configure the compiler to generate an executable for a 80186 CPU, compile, copy onto your 200LX and you can run your application on it
Or, copy your C or C++ source code to your 200LX, and compile it with Borland C++ installed on your HP 200LX
I would definately recommend learning C, it's, for me, the golden standard of programming languages, and once you're fluent in it, switch to C++ to make the development process faster and easier
(especially if your application starts to grow larger
). You can even mix C and C++ in one application!
That's my advice
If you're going to spend months on doing something, you should make sure you do something worthwhile... Why learn an easier language if you're going to learn the more difficult one later anyway, and the difference in difficulty is'nt even that big...
Cheers,
Radiance
Edited by radiance32 2022-02-24 2:28 AM