Hi all,

I like to write a program in windows xp that should mainly be able to manipulate a plain text file based on user input (eg change values) and copy some files. However I have no experience in the programming field and don't know which language would be best to learn for this purpose. Maybe some of you can help me with this. Thanks.

i would use a batch file

Definitely not a batch file...Batch files can't do file I/O. The fastest language to do it in would probably be Perl. Download activePerl from activestate.com, and go through some of the tutorials at perl.com.

Perl isn't a great language for beginners, but if this particular application is all you want to do, it wouldn't be a bad choice.

Good luck,
-SN

Someone might suggest Visual Basic or Real Basic. Liberty Basic is popular. These languages all stress GUI tools and ease of programming.

Perl would only really be fast if you knew what you were doing. Once you are familiar with it, it can work remarkably well. Same with Python. Both of these languages however are free. The easiest to use Basic variants are generally not free.

I personally would use C++. Every language will have its pros and cons and all of them will have learning curves. You can open a file, write to it, save and close it all in a few lines of code.

IR

I would recommend Python programming language. It is a real programming language,runs on many platforms and it is FREE for download at See www.python.org. It comes with several tutorials for non-programmer. It has comprehensive references and documentation for programmers.

Thanks for all your answers. I'm investigating the suggestions now.

hey... wait. I am also new in programming and was searching for best language in the web. I found every language has its own pros and cons. But after more investigation I found "Ada" programming language, which is Fast, Very Easy to learn, comes with free user friendly compiler, And capable of making almost any kind of small and large softwares. And yes, it's no.1 reliable programming language in the world... What is more fantastic ? that a commercial book to learn "Ada" you can download free from link as below.
with respect of other programmers, if we are learning a language and devoting our time, then why should we go for perl,python,ruby like scripting languages... Or if you really need scripting language then go with "PHP". It's also damn easy and fast.

You can brows the Book from link below.
http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/adacraft/contents.htm

Argh...My ears my ears!!!

I daresay this is the first time anybody has suggested ADA on this forum...Particularly for a File I/O task. Don't get me wrong, ADA has its place, but it's not for teaching beginners how to do basic text file manipulations. Plus, I think it's ungodly to allow nested procedures;-)

kamach said it himself..."I found every language has its own pros and cons." Each language has a "focus group" of tasks that it is very good at. ADA does have the reputation of being very reliable, and is still used in industry (particularly in government), but not as much as C and C++.

It is simply of no use comparing a language (in a better, worse context) like ADA to Perl, PHP, or Python. Apples and oranges.

Anyhow, back to the original question (I thought it funny that nearly every person had a different opinion on what language should be used:-) Just to even things up, we should probably suggest Java, Scheme, Lisp, Haskell, Smalltalk, and Prolog. As I mentioned, I would never suggest Perl as a first language, but let's not forget that File I/O and regular expressions would probably be two of the top three things Perl was designed for. If that's all you wanted to do, I think it would be as easy as VB. If you were going much further than this particular task, I would follow anonproxy's suggestion for VB or IR's suggestion for C++. To each his own, I guess:-)

-SN

"...it's no.1 reliable programming language in the world..."

By what standards? Reliability of a program is often left for the programmer to accomodate as oppsed to the language itself... at least in my opinion.

SN, I suggested Ada for someone a few months ago in regards to packages, etc. I thought all military oriented code had to be Ada, at least that is what my Ada instructor told me. Well, I'm working for a DoD contractor and I see numerous C++ programs and even more C programs. Is it just me or is Ada kinda-sorta fading away?

IR