Best Language for Me?

Hello,
I have a question that has probally been asked a million times but I would still some fresh answers. My question is which programming language is best for a beginner to start out programming applications. I use Windows XP and would like the application to either be cross-platform or easily converted. I would also like a language that can be made to look like Shareaza, I like the style they use. A screenshot is below (I really like the flowing graph in red, you would just have to see it.) If you do recommend a langauge please give a link of somewhere I can start to learn it.

Thanks,

Well, I would have to say C++ if you are planning on developing client side applications. You can find all kinds of links on C++ is you go to google.com...

I would say C++ if you are into programming and want to be a top-notch programmer. Since you have to do everything yourself, C++ forces you to be a better programmer. Also, if you master C++, everything else (Java, C#, etc etc) will be a piece of cake.

Having said that, the downsides are:
1. C++ can be very discouraging to absolute beginners.
2. Extremely difficult to debug. (I remember my professor told us that you can hang yourself as high as you want with C++).
3. Long development life cycle, which may not be good in today's fast pace environment when time-to-market is absolutely critical.

Therefore, I recommend you to start with Java. It fulfills your requirement to be cross-platform, and the syntax is as beautiful as C++ .

To start, go to java.sun.com to download the J2SE SDK, and read all the tutorial until your eyes hurt.

Hope this helps.

I would have to agree on C++ being a good language to start with. Also if you learn C++ then you can use the Qt toolkit for your programs and they will be cross platform.

C++ does sound like a good language for you. You might also look into JAVA. I know C++, and some JAVA, and the two are quite similar. but java is cross platform, and mostly combines the good elements of C++ with a whole lot of classes.

JAVA. Java is being used more and more as the cross platorm client side language of choice.

C++ has the problem that while there are compilers for almost every platfrom, not all programs will be cross-compatable because not all the header files are the same.

A good example is of a program we had made a number of years of go that was written for Linux and I had to port some of the code to openBSD because of header file differences.

JAVA SDK 1.4/2.0 will work on any platform that suports JAVA 1.4/2.0 repectively.

Thanks for all of your replies.

I thought about Java but I have a few concerns, doesnt it run slower because it has to run in a VM? Also can it look like Windows XP interface or Mac OS X instead of the default look of java apps? I also thought about Python but I have the same concerns about it.