   New Programmer
  I'm a new programmer who wants to make video games. I know it takes alot more practice and experience, but I eventually want to make my way up to 3D games. Not any big 3D games, just something small. Should I try to learn C++ or Visual Basic? I heard Basic was easier, but C++ had more power and was more popular. (as far as making 3D games, that is). Which should I try to learn? I want to make a 3D game. (I know I need a lot of practice, i'm not stupid.)Thanks   
  I'd recommend Visual Basic .NET (stay away from older versions of VB - VB6 and earlier - which were not so great as languages and are now obsolete) or C#. Both can be had for free from Microsoft via the Visual Studio Express packages.VB.NET and C# both have easy access to Managed DirectX, which is a very efficient way to get into 3D, once you're ready for it.C++ is indeed popular. I'm sure plenty of people will come into this thread and say you should learn C++. Don't listen to them [wink] C++ is an old language and has a lot of quirks and complications. C# is much more manageable to learn, and actually in some ways is more powerful than C++. (The same is true of VB.NET and most other .NET languages, which are all extremely similar.)See also my post here for more reasons not to use C++.A couple of other languages you might check out are Ruby and Python. They're fairly different from both C++ and VB/C# in some ways, but they're solid languages, and they can introduce you to some very handy programming tricks. I'm not sure about Ruby, but Python has a nifty little game development library called PyGame which is pretty capable.   ;  Thanks for your help. Ill see into it.BTW, are there any good free tutorials for C# or Basic that anyone knows of? I'd really appreciate. Thanks.[Edited by - Gonebowlin on June 8, 2006 10:06:33 PM];  Check out the "Noteworthy resources" thread. There are several tutorials listed there. I don't know personally how good they are, but they've been deemed worthy of the list, so they're probably pretty decent [smile]   ;  Thanks again, you've been a big help! Hopefully I will get into one of the languages.   