Python.

For what?

Yes it is.

well, im interested in game programming.

Python is a great choice. You can find pretty much every you'd need to get started (for free) on the Python website, including some excellent 'getting started' guides for developers of all experience levels.

Python, being a Turing-complete language, is as good at anything as any other Turing-complete language. Whether you like its quirks (and there are many) are up to you. It's one of those love-it-or-hate-it languages.

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Original post by Edward Ropple Python, being a Turing-complete language, is as good at anything as any other Turing-complete language. Whether you like its quirks (and there are many) are up to you. It's one of those love-it-or-hate-it languages.

Even at a theoretical level, that's not true. Anyone who has studied PLT in any depth knows there are more important things that can be said about language semantics and the relative expressive power of languages than turing completeness (and these things are not a matter of taste, they are fact).

And at the practical level you also have to consider things like the quality of the language implementations, the quality of the libraries, etc.

And yes, Python is a good choice as a starting language. Much better than C or C++, at least.

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Python, being a Turing-complete language, is as good at anything as any other Turing-complete language.

"Brainfuck, being a Turing-complete language, is as good at anything as any other Turing-complete language".

Sounds kinda strange, doesn't it?

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Original post by mikeman Quote: Python, being a Turing-complete language, is as good at anything as any other Turing-complete language. "Brainfuck, being a Turing-complete language, is as good at anything as any other Turing-complete language". Sounds kinda strange, doesn't it?

I said you can, not that you'd like it. ;-)

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Original post by Edward Ropple I said you can, not that you'd like it. ;-)

You said no such thing. What you said was "Python, being a Turing-complete language, is as good at anything as any other Turing-complete language". The word "can" does not appear at all in that sentence. And your statement is patently false. There are things Python are good at that other languages are bad at. There are things that other languages are good at that Python is bad at. Not all Turing complete languages are equally good at everything. For example, Python is much better at text processing than C is. On the other hand, C is much better for writing device drivers than Python.

If you're working on the PC and have pixel shader 2.0+ the XNA development kit provides you with a great IDE, clear samples and is aimed at people learning to program games.

That may be true, but it's also not really what is being discussed.

Yes, Python is good for game programming. You can find everything you need to get started at the python website, but instead of downloading python from the official website do a google search for "active python" it is a python package with several useful add ons.