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Probably not the best forum to ask this question, but the CodeIgniter Forums have yet to fail me.

I am registering for some classes, and for my degree track, I have the option of doing C++ or Java. As someone who is an aspiring web developer, what language do you guys think I would benefit in learning? I know I should probably learn both, but what I am wondering is, just to fulfill degree requirements, what should I do?

I’ve heard PHP and C++ are similar, and I already have some PHP knowledge, as well as what I have done/learned while using Codeigniter.

Thanks in advanced…

Hi HSKrustofsky,

There’s two ways you can look at this:

1. Choose the language that will be better for you as a web developer
2. Choose the language that will be easier to pass (however the extra time you save you can spend on learning web development e.g. PHP).

Looking at the languages, you can kind of see what direction each one will take you:

Java:

Adv (in relation to your needs and in my opinion, if you need general java advantages there’s plenty of books/articles online):

1. Much easier to learn
2. Much more Object Oriented
3. Able to build Java web apps, however how popular are these really?
4. If you ever want to go into mobile apps (strong links to web development…) Android apps are built in Java.
5. Java is sometimes used as a web server. Java web servers have their own adv/disadvantages… I won’t go there.

Dis:
1. That virtual machine is a damn memory hog…

C++:

Adv:

1. Lower level functionality (memory pointers, no naive memory management), you learn much more about what goes on under the hood and can make better performance optimisations.
2. If you ever want to go into games, this is the language to know.
3. Objective-C (which I think is similar) is used to build iPhone/iPad apps.

Dis:

1. That low level functionality will be a real pain to learn at first, debugging can be difficult and the flexibility can mean if you’re not careful you can end up writing some real nasty code.

I personally studied Java at university while in my own time I built games in Actionscript 3, after I went onto create games in C++ and now I am employed as an Actionscript front end web developer while learning PHP to expand my web development knowledge. In my experience Java is probably the better language for you to choose (slightly closer to web development, less headaches and time wasted). However if you’re interested in game development, iPhone/iPad apps or fancy a challenge, choose C++!

I would suggest you learn C# .NET if it’s offered. It’s very much like Java when it comes to syntax and a bit like C++ in many ways. The .NET framework is very much like CodeIgniter (well, not really) but it basically makes building apps very quick and easy because so many things are already pre-built into their libraries that you can (or don’t have to) use. Advantages over C++ and Java (not inclusive of both, always):

1. Cross platform, can be run on any Windows machine by default since XP and Macs etc. with a appropriate software.
2. Very much like Java syntactically, everything is an object. Will pickup some good programming habits you can apply to PHP, for example.
3. If you’re programming for the web, neither one of those is honestly very widely used. At least with C# you can write ASP.NET websites and services if you wanted to.

I may have missed a few things or even been off base for some of those, I’m not a full time programmer but I did choose C# for desktop development to compliment PHP for my web based programming and I’m glad I did. Plus - if you ever need to get a job doing this, C# developers are in very, very high demand for line of business apps.

I would suggest you to learn both languages, c++ and then java. In our curriculum, we were having both languages, c++ was in first semester, and java followed the next semester. If you know c++, then it is much easier to learn java, as both are object oriented languages.

And if you want a laugh, compare SpringMVC to CodeIgniter!

It is better study simple languages first and then go to tough languages like c++. Try simple languages like .Net languages . C# http://csharp.net-informations.com is better because it is Object Oriented and easy to understand . Moreover it syntax is very similar to C++ and Java.

Perez

Both are essential languages for any programmer because C++ is a basic language to learn Java having lot of scope in future. In today’s world many Govt. Sectors also hire the Java Professionals. PHP is also a good way to be a Web Developer.