If you need GWBASIC or QBASIC,
go to the Programs page to download them. Sorry, VB and C++ are too large to
upload
If you are reading this then you want to learn how to
program, or better yet write programs to help you with your hacking activities.
That's just what you'll learn from me. I'm sure there's other sites out there
that are better than mine and explain how to program with "better" languages,
but BASIC is an extremely strong language, thus it is important to learn BASIC.
There are pages on Visual Basic and C++ also. For those of you who don't know,
Visual Basic is by Microsoft and its a language that makes 32 bit applications
(apps). When you make a vb app, it looks like notepad, or word, its a windows
with a file, edit menu at the top and buttons, text boxes, scrool lists, all
that stuff. It's a powerful language and works for Windows based GUI programs.
C++ is very strong, but C# is newer and stronger. There's no page for C# yet
since i found out about it a few days ago. Anyway, C++ apps can take many forms,
command line interface (CLI) and graphic user interface(GUI). Perl is a CGI
program which stands for Common Gateway Interface. This is a language that is
used in HTML forms to take user input and interact with the user. CGI is cool
because anyone can use it, if you are on a Win9x machine and call a CGI script
from a web browser you see the same stuff as someone with a UNIX box that requests
the same script. From the programming side, it's useful b/c you don't need to
learn hot to port the script to different platforms.
Here is the most basic explination of programming: You the programmer write instructions (code) that the computer will carry out. The computer interprets the instructions with a language that the programmer must know. The computer can take input from the user (keyboard, mouse, pen, etc) and use the input for conditions in the code. The language you learn is just the beginning. You learn the syntax which is how to use the language, then you apply it to what you want the program to do. You can't learn creativeness. You need to beable to write a program in a creative way to make it better. There is no difference from a novelist or poet to a computer programmer. The more creative you are the better you write! After you write the source code, you need to compile it to an executable form. In a Windows system, an executable format are files with these extensions:.exe, .com, .bat, etc. .bat files are called batch files and are probably the easiest to program. Open notepad and type in DOS commands and save it as filename.bat. Then call the program by typing the filename in a DOS prompt and you see the commands in the file are executed. This is called scripting which makes things easier and faster. Example: If you use NASM to compile code and then write the output file to a floppy using partcopy, then you can make a batch file like this:
nasm code\%1.asm -f bin -o programs\%1.bin
partcopy programs\%1.bin 0 %2 -f0 %3
Save it as comp.bat and type in the command line like this:
comp test 200 100
Here's what happens: comp is the comp.bat file, and test is the first parameter which is %1 in the code, %2 is 200 %3 is 100, so here's what each command would look like it you typed it out:
nasm code\test.asm -f bin -o programs\test.bin
partcopy programs\test.bin 0 200 -f0 100
See, the comp test 200 100 is alot less typing and does the same thing. If you omit %3, so will the batch file. Go write some batches and be happy that your a programmer now!
Back to my point, you dont need to compile a batch file b/c DOS doesn't need to. If you write code for a computer language you will need to compile it to a executable format.
Here's my plans, if your a newbie and don't know anything, then read everything here and visit the tutorial links(if theyre still up) buy or steal a book thats about programming. I want this site to give newbies a start as well as having advanced stuff for programmers that know the basics. I believe in exposing and helping newbies b/c I want more hackers in the world, but I don't believe in re-writing everything. There are so many tutorials and books I'm leaving the learning up to you, I just hope this page helps you out.
You probably want some recommendations on what to learn first. Well it all depends on what you want to do. If you don't know and want to leave all the options open learn Assembly. ASM is the fastest language ever, it can do anything possible with computers, but with those powers comes the down side of userfriendliness and ease of learning. Take for example the basic If Then Else statement that almost every language has. There's the syntax:
If (variable1 = variable2) Then
Goto LabelA
Else
Goto LabelB
End If
In common English, you could probably understand whats
going on, but if you wrote this in ASM it would look like this:
lea bx,[variable1]
mov ax,bx
mov si,ax
lea bx,[variable2]
lodsw
cmp ax,[bx]
je LabelA
jne LabelB
This is more confusing, but it's faster, alot faster
because it's using the processors registers directly unlike a basic program.
So like I said, if you want to have all the options open to you, hit ASM programming
hard! But if you know you want to write Windows based apps that have simple
code and can do alot with Windows, I would recommend Visual Basic. It's extremely
easy and pretty good. There are more VB programmers in the world than there
are christians! If you want to add more power and use Windows or UNIX then learn
C. C is old fast and powerful. There is C, C++, and C#. Good old C is great,
I would stick with that, but C++ is better for Windows based apps, C# I have
no idea about. If your an old DOS junkie (no offense, I love DOS) then program
in QBASIC or GWBASIC. QBASIC is from Microsoft and it has it's own compiler
and everything. It's the best for DOS. If you use DOS and want to program in
C, I recommend DJGPP's C for DOS, it's cool. VB is completly graphical, can't
use it with DOS. If your into web programming then learn HTML, DHTML, CGI, Perl,
VBScript, JavaScript, etc. I don't really deal with that stuff, but Navic have
a nice Perl tutorial.
