Hello guys.
I got a big question. Im learning Java Programming in school. Well, I found that its pretty sweet stuff. Now I wanna expand my knowledge even further on writing my own programs such as notepad, a little messenger or maybe something small of that nature.

But the question is, which programming language do I use to make executeable files?
Do I learn C++, Visual C++

I need some help. Im going to expand my programming knowledge so I can be a programmer. Thanks guys for any help you give

C++ is the actual language while as Visual C++ is Microsofts version of the IDE and Compiler, you can also get the highly popular DevC++ if you are on a Windows Machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C++

That will give you more of an insight to the C++ language, although I don't know much of the language myself it's a really good one to have under your belt.

If you want another programming language which can create excecutible files then I would personally suggest Visual Basic, you can use 6.0, .NET or 2005 the 2005 edition is free from MSDN.

To further confuse, there is also MS's C# which is gaining in popularity

IF looking to do coding professionally, check your country's job sites on the net and see what expierance companies are after.

Downunder there's currently a huge growth in PHP, CSS, and JS. Though expierance with MS's .net would land you a tasty role.

Ruby on Rails is worth dialling into as well, can see that motoring off at a fast clip in due course.

Good luck with the coding.

Well there are some great jobs for Java programmers, I my self like Java much more than C. If you have a background in Java then I would suggest that you learn C# or Python next. C# would be a pretty smooth transition because it's really similar to Java, and its another powerful OOPL. Visual Basic has some funny things about it that make it prone to bugs which I don't really like. You should probably learn a little bit about UNIX and Linux if you want to become a programmer, and learning a machine language is something you might want to look into after a few years of programming.