Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

Your B+ will be fine as a media player, server, electronics tool, programming hobby. If you want a desktop computer, upgrade to Pi 2.

The A+ is best where you need to operate on battery power.

The 2 B will be best if you do a lot of compiling from source - it's much quicker. What are you intending to do with your RPi?

So is it worth upgrading to the latest Pi?

I only just got a B+ model and suspect it will be fine.

Gotta say there's been a bunch of hardware updates now - five I think since the launch in 2012.

On 02/21/15, mm0fmf pondered and said... mm> Only you know the answer to that! ;-)

I was afraid you might say that ;-)

FWIW I get the same delemas shopping for other electronic gadgets... sigh.

On 02/21/15, David Taylor pondered and said... DT> The A+ is best where you need to operate on battery power. DT> DT> The 2 B will be best if you do a lot of compiling from source - it's DT> much quicker. What are you intending to do with your RPi?

Hi David,

Well it's early days but I am thinking of running a Mystic BBS system on it using software recently released by Mystic author James Coyle. I'm also interested in learning some programming skills. A family member suggested C or C# would be good.

On 02/21/15, A. Dumas pondered and said... AD> Your B+ will be fine as a media player, server, electronics tool, AD> programming hobby. If you want a desktop computer, upgrade to Pi 2.

So really it's the same but with more CPU etc. grunt?

On 22/02/2015 01:08, Paul Hayton wrote: []

Can't comment on the BBS, but will it need external storage? I would think that the B+ would handle the compute bits. But as the 2B and the B+ are about the same price, getting the 2B is the obvious choice if you are buying today, especially as you are intending to to programming.

C# is an interesting language but I wouldn't learn it on Linux and I don't think there is an ARM Linux port. I'd start out on Windows with Visual Studio Express (free) and play in the home environment. There's a port to Linux (MONO) but apart from compiling a "Hello World" app I've not tried to see how much of the .NET framework is available for Linux. Having C# compiler available is fine but really the only reason to use C# (IMHO) is to use the .NET framework. If you don't want the framework then there are better languages available. Having been grinding out software to pay the bills since 1983, I'd suggest C++ for any compute-intensive tasks and Python for most everything else.

For the record, I support and develop a C#/ASP.NET/MSSQL web app in my spare time but don't use it professionally. The man pays me to write C++ code for Windows/Linux and I use C for Linux drivers and legacy stuff and again Python for everything else.

Indeed, and twice the RAM, makes for about 6x the performance. Another advantage of the new processor is that it is a newer, current architecture which means more (& more up to date) software. Not that there's a shortage for the old one.

The vast majority of it is available but YMMV. MonoDevelop on Linux is a direct clone of Visual Studio, and works very well.

---druck

On 02/22/15, David Taylor pondered and said... DT> Can't comment on the BBS, but will it need external storage? I would DT> think that the B+ would handle the compute bits. But as the 2B and the DT> B+ are about the same price, getting the 2B is the obvious choice if you DT> are buying today, especially as you are intending to to programming.

I could add storage via external USB and a bolt on HDD. I have a B+ already and figure based on the feedback I have received from the group it should be fine. I'll keep you posted :-)

Best, Paul

On 02/22/15, mm0fmf pondered and said... mm> C# is an interesting language but I wouldn't learn it on Linux and I mm> don't think there is an ARM Linux port. I'd start out on Windows with

Yes I think you may be right. I did find something that I could install to do some basic C 'Hello World' coding but it was a clunky solution.

mm> then there are better languages available. Having been grinding out mm> software to pay the bills since 1983, I'd suggest C++ for any mm> compute-intensive tasks and Python for most everything else.

Is there any advantage to learning one before the other, and if so which first? If I started with C++ instead of C or C# is that helpful to my overall understanding of the launguage?

On 02/22/15, A. Dumas pondered and said... AD> > So really it's the same but with more CPU etc. grunt? AD> AD> Indeed, and twice the RAM, makes for about 6x the performance. Another AD> advantage of the new processor is that it is a newer, current AD> architecture which means more (& more up to date) software. Not that AD> there's a shortage for the old one.

Ah well it's the B+ for me and the prospect that the backwards compatibility will be about for a long time ;) I do wonder at the rate all of these updates have been coming out at. Just when you think you have a new model it gets superceeded.

I would start by asking what sort of things you will want to program. If you are interested in higher level apps, you probably want to start with an object oriented language such as java (or possibly C# - never used it so I'm not sure how similar it is).

OTOH, if you are more interested in kernel level or other low level programming, you probably want to start with C.

In my view C++ is something that fits badly inbetween, and that makes it a poor choice for a first language - you should learn a proper object oriented language first to understand the correct principles.

there are good reasons why the Raspberry pi org promote python

it is well structured, easy to read but capable of serious usage many of the day-day admin tools on Linux a written in Python the default python development environment in Raspian (Idle) is it self written in python

the advantage of C is it is a compiled language & is very closely tied to the underlying hardware & operating system.

the disadvantage of C is that it is a complied language & is very closely tied to the underlying hardware & operating system.

as a beginner to programming Python will teach good practices without the need to get tied down with the complexities that need to be known before you can even get as far as "hello World".

I'd say that straight ANSI C is as good a starting place as any for learning about modern block-structured languages, but do buy a copy of "The C programming Language" by Kernighan and Richie and use that as your learning guide. K&R are the people who defined C and wrote the first C compiler. The book is very clear, is well-structured in terms of chapter content and order, and has lots of relevant example code. Each chapter ends with a set of well-chosen problems for you to tackle, starting from Hello World in the first chapter:

#include int main(int argc, char **argv) { printf("Hello world\n"); }

In addition, the GNU C compiler (free with every RPi) is reasonably fast and, these days, produces good error messages. If you also learn to use 'make', which is invaluable once you start writing programs big enough to be split into multiple source files, you'll understand a pretty good compilation system,

OTOH, if you want to learn an object-oriented language, I'd suggest that Java is a good choice: apart from anything else, it won't let you write anything that isn't an object: even the "Hello World" program is an object:

public class Hello { public static void main (String args[]) { System.out.println("Hello from Java"); } }

... and uses 40 times the CPU time to execute compared with the C version.

If you do go for Java, make sure that you also download and install the Javadocs document set, which describes all the classes in the (large!) support library. I can't recommend a book: a lot of people sat you can learn it from the language definition (part of the javadocs set) but I think that would be rather hard work. I taught myself using Ivor Horton's "Beginning Java" which was OK, but I would class it as 'good average' rather than 'outstanding'.

This insistance on strict object orientation is unlike C++, where all too often I've seen programs that claimed to be written in C++ but were in fact merely vanilla C with a few decorations such as C++-style comments and used C++ I/O streams rather than the equivalent ANSI C I/O functions. I tried it and found it over-ornate and complex: this wasn't helped by my using Bjarne Stroustrups' "The C++ Programming Language", which I found was a difficult read and relatively poorly organised. BTW, BJ was the man who defined the language and wrote the first C++ compiler (actually a front-end to the ANSI C compiler).

HTH

This!

To the OP, my mistake I thought you could program already and wanted to learn C/C#. If you can't program, start with Python. I've only been writing software to pay the bills since 1983 and it was only about 2011 I started with Python. Between then and now I've used C, C++, assembler (4bit to 64bit), Java, Fortran, Pascal, Basic and god knows what else. In all those years Python was the first language that didn't get in the way of solving the problem.

Start at the deep end and learn C++. It's better to get the right mindset by starting with an object orientated language, without getting too wedded to a functional language first. When you know C++, its easy to downgrade to C if you need to. You can also move across to C# and revel in loosing some of the nastiness of C/C++ and get a decent class library chucked in, but as its not a native language its not suited to everything.

---druck

Do not learn C++ at all unless someone pays you large sums of money to do so! If you want to learn a low level, object oriented language Java is the popular choice and it is not cluttered with forty years of backward compatibility.

Python is the obvious choice for programming on the Pi. It is a straightforward language and there is a large body of code already written for the Pi that you can use as a starting point for your programs. Guido van Rossum should be lynched for introducing a new incompatible version of the language and I suggest you stick with the Version 2.7.