How do I purchase and download a programming language?

You could write a “Career counseling quiz programming” web page using Notepad and a web browser. No need to buy or download anything, but I’d suggest at least getting the (free) Notepad++ .

What’s “best” is both subjective and depends on you and what you want.

I might tend to recommend you learn Python which is also free, does require a download and a little bit of installation, but has really good online tutorials (also free) and I think is just a very good language to start learning programming, and to do simple projects in.

On Windows, Visual Studio is also free and good but I think is overkill for what you’re talking about, and liable to be more frustrating.

I agree with @Zaku . If you want something simple, direct, and to the point, then Python will do the trick. Even something like javascript will let you do quite a bit, without learning about compilers.

If you’re going to be saving to databases and doing retrieval and fancier displays, then you need to be looking at various other, more complex object-oriented languages. For serious work, you need to get a full-blown IDE (Integrated Development Environment), but that is two orders of magnitude more sophisticated than what I think you are trying to do.

@Zaku OK I downloaded python and put the instructions on my favorites bar. Thanks. @elbanditoroso Thanks. For later when I have something worth selling.

I would look into PHP and MySQL. There is a easy way to install all of the needed things here. PHP is pretty easy for somebody with very little experience. Most of the internet uses it.

@johnpowell It doesn’t install.

Try XAMPP instead.

https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html

@johnpowell It wants me to disable my anti-virus software. I clicked no.

https://www.python.org/

You can also download a Linux distro and use the free tools. No need to butcher your partitions either just run it in Virtual box

I also agree with Python. There are a ton of free resources to learn Python. Also there are a ton of libraries (other people’s code) that lets you do fun and interesting things much more quickly to keep your interest going. I suggest working through some tutorials, and then building a very small & realistic project on your own and commit to finishing it.

What is a career quiz? Is it a questionnaire to determine what career you should choose? How would you know what questions to ask and how to evaluate the answers? There must be services that allow you to construct a quiz without knowing any programming.

I encourage you to learn Python on general principles, but it would be quite a while before you would be able to do what you want.

Here is a site that has a list of products that you could use to design quizzes. Even if you limit yourself to the ones that are for free, there is still a fair number of choices.

I am still curious to know how you decide what questions to ask and how to evaluate the answers.

@LostInParadise What is a career quiz? I don’t know yet. I am learning as I go. I would like to improve on the Choices career program that I used in high school.

@all I’m still stuck. I might save money and take a few courses in computer science in Athabasca university in a few years. No rush.

How far did you get?

@RedDeerGuy1 , Did you look into Python? It is the most widely taught language. You can download it for free. Just do a Web search for download Python. There are free reference manuals and courses all over the Web.

To see how easy it is to use, open the console. Type an arithmetic expression like 3+2 and hit carriage return. You will see the answer. Not much of a program, but not bad for not knowing the language. Try using variables. Enter x=3 and carriage return. Then type x+4 and carriage return. For some more interesting programs, do a search for python turtle library. It is a library that comes with Python that allows for some interesting graphical patterns.

Expand your horizons. Try it for a week. It is worthwhile just to get some idea of how programming works.

@gorillapaws I downloaded it onto my laptop PC and got confused. I have a desktop computer and will try again soon. I sold my laptop a year ago.

@LostInParadise I will download again on my PC soon. Thanks.

I will make supper and search YouTube for videos on Python, and watch at my own pace.