greeting everyone! hope christmas good! so I just got finish taking fundamental of programming and need advice on what to take next. My interest in programming is to become more knowledgeable in hacking. I have a choice of C# programming, programming in perl,C++, visual basic and java. any help would be appreciated. thank you.

Depends what you mean by hacking. If you mean the original definition, which somehow I doubt as you don't seem old enough, then fine. However, if you mean to break the code of a programme for the purpose of reverse engineering or inserting your own malicious code or other similar nefarious activities then go away - and that is being polite. Stuart

sorry i think i didn't be specific enough. i guess what i want to do with programming is be more aware of the network and have more control of my network. i didn't mean like hacking into other stuff with my malicious code but instead be able to detect such code and stop them myself or write my code to prevent malicious acts. I'm not interest in writing software for application.

In that case you are talking about a firewall or anti-virus application. I would do some research on start doing some reading. First you need to read up on network protocols like TCP/IP and Ethernet. That's before you even write a single line of code. C++ is the best all round programming language with Pearl and Java having its uses with the Internet. I would forget about Visual Basic. It has it's uses but not for low level stuff like you appear to be contemplating. Stuart

awesome! look like i'm going to take C++ and w2k3 server this coming semester. i already got my ccna so tcp/ip shouldn't be a problem regarding programming. thank again.

If you want low-level network stuff, you don't have much of a choice. You'll need Linux, and it is written in C.