Application Programming

[daemonmf]

I've decided to beef up my resume with some programming. My goal is to create a halfway decent portfolio of practical applications and maybe some games. Anyone have any suggestions for languages and/or books on applications programming?

I have an associates in net engineering, but I did complete about 90% of the comp sci program so I have some foundation, just not sure which direction to go.

 

[Whatsisname]

It doesn't really matter. Just get a bunch of old ACM programming contest questions and solve those.

 

[william_fontaine]

Oh, it does matter. From a software engineering point of view, performing the whole development lifecycle on an app that you decided to write is far more beneficial than a simple programming contest problem that takes an hour or two to solve. Writing a full application should expose you to the steps of requirements, analysis & design, and implementation, and help you get better at all those things.

Not that programming contest-type questions are necessarily bad - they're fun, and can help you quickly get a basic knowledge of a language, and learn new things about one you already know. But almost no real-life project is that simple, or is even remotely like one of the programming contest problems.

As for a language, depends on what you want to do. Were you thinking of getting into web apps, or desktop apps, or something else entirely?