help me soon please!

I know this is the Vb forum. but I coulnt figure out which forum to post it on...

I am going to borders books tomorow..
I have about 50 bucks to spend.
i cant decide whether to buy a book on:
PHP(like perl, yet another CGI language, used on this forum)
Perl
Flash
Pascal
Delphi
or
Assembly

I probably wont be doing PHP or flash. I dont have a flash maker. but I am planning on getting one.
and I probably wint be getting a PHP book, because my server doesnt support it... only perl.

I have no idea how to code in asm pascal or delphi, I want to learn them all, I hear delphi is a pretty cool language.
I also hear that that delphi is a beefed up pascal...
true?
and I am really serious about learning ASM, I want to learn it alot. I hate not knowing it, because it is so powerful.
I hear you can do anything in ASM, well anything "computerly possible"
I also have a choice of database book, but it doesnt help me much, because I dont have MS acess.
I wish I had ms acess
kind of off topic, but does any body know of a place where I could kind of "test" a copy of MS acess, if you know what i mean.

[joey o.]

Do the Delphi.
Borrow a disk from a friend for the Access but close your eyes so no one sees you!

ok, sure, but why do you recomend this?

[joey o.]

You learn what you enjoy best. Reread your post tomorrow. I'm sure you'll agree your letter is biased toward Delphi. Hell, I could probably go out and spend my last dollar on some nuclear fusion book, but if it's not what I really wanted to read I probably wouldn't become the next Einstein from reading it. On the other hand if it was really something I wanted to read, things might be different.

oh, I will probably buy the delphi book.
but I was just wondering what others thought. I really want to learn ASM, but I think I need to learn some lower level languages(compared to VB not asm) before learning that..
does anybody know if delphi is its own language, or is delphi just a spiced up pascal?
if so, then I have no use for pascal, since delphi will be better with all the features of pascal....
but i dont know if its true..
another thing about delphi that i like is the name... it sounds so different...
Visual Basic, Visual C++, Assembler, they all sound kind of technical, and Pascal sounds too scientific. but delphi has always kind of been like, different.. for some reason I have always thought so, I have no idea why though.
does anybody here know any delphi, so you can show me a few lines of code?
that is usually how I start out programming in a language, I look at a few lines of code, if I like it, i start programming in it. if i dont, then I will wait till I am a better programmer....
thanks joey o, and thanks to eveybody in advance....

PS, everybody I know, knows nothing about computers, all they know how to do is start AOL and run their AOL "ProgGz"
the school does have acess, but its version 4
damn old 1.6gb 90mhz peice of crap novel network computers

[ShepherdOfChaos]

All I can think to say is, "Are you nuts?". Delphi??? You seem to have a lot of brain cells that you'd like to put to work. Put them to work in a focused manner- stick with Microsoft products: Visual Basic, Visual C++, and even ASM. MY GOD MAN, have you any idea how valuable having competent knowledge in each of those languages is? Master any one of them and you will always be able to put bread on your table (for lots of folks). When you can honestly say you have mastered one of these languages, then look to move on to another one.

If you really must learn something outside of the languages listed above, learn something that is likely to be valuable far into the future- learn JAVA.

Like it or not, Microsoft owns the universe, and will continue to do so for quite some time, even if the company is split up; it would just be under a different name. There are so many MS products and standards used in key industries now that this momentum cannot be stopped any time soon.

Delphi will always be a marginal language with a marginal market for Delphi programming jobs. I once made the mistake of buying a computer with a small market share just because I thought it was cool and a little better than the standard PC offerings in terms of pure computing power. I learned C programming on this computer, an ATARI 1040ST (Motorola 68000 cpu), and eventually wrote some small games. Nothing incredible, but pretty good for the times (late 80's). I made a little money off of these games by selling them to monthly ATARI magazines. And I soon figured out by comparing what I had made to what others were getting for really crappy PC games that if I had been programming on an IBM PC platform I would have made about 100 times more money and I might still be writing games today.

The ATARI market was just too small and eventually dwindled to nothing, causing me to LOSE FOCUS and dissipate my passion for game programming. I pursued other avenues of making a living, and other interests, instead of keeping to my dreams. Instead of having the PATIENCE to MASTER a new game programming environment, I went off in 100 different directions at once and accomplished very little. What I'm trying to say is: decide where your passion is and stick with it until you have met your goals.

[Sire]

Are you crazy. You only buys the delphi book if you are rich. Buy Visual C++, Visual Basic, or Visual J++(not realy)

hehehe, well I didnt buy the delphi book, but instead I bought an API book. I also bought a perl book....

and about java, I am gonna learn that too....I still have a couple years before I can get a real job,(I am only 13) at a real company, so I have plenty of time to master VB,
and I may have time to master VC++, and hopefully ASM, then perl, the delphi, then awk, then basic, then the world hahahahaha....
ahem.. I mean, I have enough time to master a few languages before getting a job