ATT Programmers - advice needed

[[XC] Oj101]

So it's come time to do something constructive and I think I'll take up a programming language. I already know scripting in HTML and PHP but find building websites to be a "bit" on the boring side (I've been part of a team which developed a PHP driven point of sale system, asset management systems, an SLA manager, built a framework, etc so I'm not talking about building a one page website :p) and ultimately I'd like to end up programming in a very low level language.

I'm thinking that C or C++ would be a good starting point, which should I choose and why? I've done a kakhuis of Googling but every article I found had a writer who was biased to one or the other for whatever reason - I just want the facts as to which is the better choice and when. Should I consider something else?

Until I get an answer I'm going to start teaching myself C++ as it seems to be the one which will teach "correct" programming, e.g. a function must be defined before it can be called.

[CrazyNutz]

I've been programming in C for over 10 years, I love it, and I have yet to find another language to be superior (my opinion). C++ I view as an enhancement to C, I program with I't too, however when I start a project I always find myself doing plain old C.

It really depends on what your doing. If your writing a windows App then C++ is the way to go. If you do Linux programming C is mostly the way to go. If Mac then objective C.

I do a lot of video algorithm (filters, machine vision, etc..) programming, my fave here is C with inline asm to take advantage of SIMD.

[s1nykuL]

The first language I learned was 'C' from the original Kernighan & Ritchie book on a Xenix box using Vi. I was just amazed at the power, flexibility and obvious logic of it all. I started messing with php around a year ago and although it has an OO side I code procedurally with that too.

Should you choose the 'C' route I would recommend "The C Programming Language" by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, it has to be the authoritative book on the language as Dennis Ritchie himself designed the language.

'C' is just awesome. I agree with CrazyNutz in that you would be hard pushed to find a better, more flexible language.

[El Mano]

C, and then depending on what do you want to do you can go to C++, Java or whatever.
Starting with C is a good idea.