For someone who has NEVER done any programming before, and is learning on their own, and would like to go into the computer science field, what is the best language to learn initially?

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Why?  (feel free to vote for an existing answer and put your logic in as a comment under that language)

All things being equal, what is your favorite programming language?

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Why? (feel free to vote for an existing answer and put your logic in as a comment under that language)

I am wondering, what is the best set-up to have to be able to compile c/c code so that the executable can run on windows/dos. I need to create some simple programs that need to run in windows/dos.

What's more random; a random number or two random numbers added together?

Does anyone know of any sites like Rentacoder.com who are just as reputable?

Hey there, I'm just wondering if any VB.NET/VB Express gurus out there would have any idea for the best way to bypass a print dialog box. I'm developing a fax server that uses the built in Windows FaxServer API. Everything works perfectly and hidden unless I try to fax an HTML doc. It pops up a Print Dialog box. Anyone have any idea how I may be able to bypass this? Thanks!

What framework, what language, what kind of servers? Need secure login, speed, caching, low cost, connection pooling, etc.

I take APCompSci this year and the AP test is coming up (2 weeks). Does anyone know of good (little known?) websites with quality Java help/tutorials/anything-helpful OR a site specifically for APCS students?

So the first announcement of it was posted to blogs on January 2nd. When I emailed SpiderWorks about it in February, they responded that it would be released during March. Now at the website, http://www.spiderworks.com/books/learnobjc.php, it says April. It's April and future Mac developers are still waiting. Anybody have any inside info about the hold up?

PInvoke for vb.net cf? For use with PocketPC 2003se or higher.

Anyone know if there are any avaliable .net barcode recognition SDK's compatible with compact framework or written/ported specifically for compact framework? Need it for OCR on a PocketPC.

I need several custom modifications created for my vBulletin based site, but so far I have not had much success finding the right people for the job. Posting requests on vBulletin.org is a waste of time. Where can I find someone who could create vBulletin modifications for me?

So the first announcement of it was posted to blogs on January 2nd. When I emailed SpiderWorks about it in February, they responded that it would be released during March. Now at the website, http://www.spiderworks.com/books/learnobjc.php, it says April. It's April and future Mac developers are still waiting. Anybody have any inside info about the hold up?

I am looking for a way to display GIS analysis online without using proprietary formats, that looks good and doesn't involve the google API (it can be a paid OSS solution, the company I work for has tons of cash)

where are some good resources to show me how ot build a sidebar element for my blog? for example, on my blog i show a vsocail list of my favorite movies as well as a list of my favorite digg articles. i am looking for a way to create my own displayable lists in my sidebar for sites that do not provide the code to do so. for example, http://www.stylehive.com/finnstones, i would like to my a vertical badge of the last 10 entries to this profile , showing title, image name, and with a link. i guess i just need to find a good example but dont have any to go off of. i already know i can make the feed include images by remixing it using rssmix or feed43. but what i really need is some good resources that provide styling for a sidebar element. thanks!

I already know a lot of Pascal, isnt there a good transition or a tutorial which will show whats the main changes... Or something really from point zero would do.

Microsoft designates different types to different USB devices.  So even though a CD put in a USB CD drive will autorun, a USB flash drive will not.  Autorun is not the same thing as autoload (such as viewing multimedia or the contents of a folder).  It is also completely different from autoboot, which can also be easily done with a flash USB device.  Autorun  will read an autorun.inf and execute the programs just like a CD. There are ways to alter the O/S to force it to allow flash devices to autorun like a CD, but there is no way I have found to take a standard USB flash memory and autorun on any unaltered, logged in, XP computer simply by plugging the flash memory device in.  This is primarily for security reasons, however, there are many useful reasons to want to do this.

There is a company that makes a custom USB flash device which creates a partition of the flash drive that reads like a CD and will autorun.  I am looking for some clever person who can figure out how to make a standard USB flash memory device work the same way.

 Good Luck all.
 

Can you use Postgresql Stored Procedures in a manner similar to Oracle Web Cartridge to output web pages? If not, when will I be able to? This would make web development ten times easier. I hope the stored procedures do sql inline. I hate stringing SQL statements.

Does anybody know of a way to extract meta-data from a PDF. I am looking onto a way to automate a daily task in which I check a PDF's creation date, and if it's a current date, I set it aside to be archived, otherwise it gets deleted. It's only a handfull of PDFs so it's no big task, however, automating it would be best.