What computer programming language should I learn?

I want to design a progrm that will aid me in designing marching band formations coupled with music. The program would have to be able to import and analyse a song (Mp3, wav, midi) and determing the tempo. It would then have to allow me to design the placement of various persons, and then syncronise them together to show the moving formations while the music is playing.





I realize that this program will be rather advanced, and I am asking what language will best suite this application. It would almost definitely need to have a GUI.





Any Suggestions?

What computer programming language should I learn?
I think that the best option would be to download the source code of Audacity, the leading open source sound editing tool. You can then add your functionality into the application. This will give you both the sound manipulation functions as well as a GUI that you could hook into. I believe it's written in C++





http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Reply:If this will be your first programming experience, try VB.NET. If you need something free you could try Java but it won't be easy for you.
Reply:Programming these days is very, very complicated compared to what it was in the past when writing a BASIC program was somewhat simple. I would either try and find a shareware program that does what you are looking for -- try either download (www.download.com) or tucows (www.tucows.com) -- or I would hire a programmer to write it. If you have to write it on your own, I would use C++ or Visual Basic, or possibly JAVA. Good luck.
Reply:java but honestly I would say VB.net Microsoft has a speech API so you can have a head start in sound manipulation.. good luck
Reply:Microsoft now has tools available for free and will work for what you are trying to do.





http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/expres...





In the middle of the page, it has "For Windows Development" Read the descriptions of each and select the flavor that works best for you.





If you have never programmed before, what you are trying it do is, yes, quite advanced. I have been doing web programming myself for upward of 10 years, and I wouldnt confess to even know where to start on that.





It might be a good idea, when working with music, to work with C++, you will have more "low level" programming available to you. Program what you can, then I would suggest to use some "cheap" international programmers from rentacoder.com to help you with some of the more complex pieces that you can drop into your code. Signing up for a membership with experts-exchange.com will also help you get through the learning curve.
Reply:Personally, i would recommend you to learn C/C++


Once you know C/C++, the other language will be easy for you to learn..


For GUI, i think VB is suitable to learn..there a lot tutorials site on the NET....
Reply:This is beyond your ability to create; however it is not beyond your ability to design. If you create a detailed explanation of what you want, I am certain that you can get this done; likey for free or a small fee if you can find a bored programming student. I used to be one of those myself.





If you are intent on doing it yourself, then grab a book on C# and have at it. While VB is extremely simple ot use, I would say that you will be happier with C# in the long run, and beleive me, this isn't going to be a weekend project. Regardless of the language that you choose, try to stick in the .NET arena since you are not a developer.
Reply:You'll need a mainstream programming language with GUI and Sound libraries/bindings. C/C++, C#, VB.NET, Java, Python, Ruby are all usable. Python and Ruby can have C extensions, so you can combine C with Python or Ruby to have good solid and effective code.





The problem is that GUI and sound are not programming languages themselves. So after learning a programming language you'll need to learn a GUI and sound toolkit. Once you have gained programming experience, you'll know how to tackle GUI and sound.

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