Hey, quick question. If I am totally new to computer programming, am I better off making a cruise server myself from scratch, modifying an existing one (it that is possible), or paying someone to make it for me?

Thanks.

If you're willing to learn then start off by modifying someone else's and move on to writing your own if you find you're unhappy with working on someone else's code. If you're not willing to learn or don't have the spare time then paying someone else to write a custom app is about your only choice (but getting a good quality application will cost a lot).

I probably would want to avoid the high price of someone else making it for me, so how do I go about learning the programming language? Is it straight-forward and intuitive?

thanks again..

There is no InSim programming language. InSim itself is a protocol, which is basically just a way of doing things. InSim programs can be written in any language which is capable of creating a network connection, which is pretty much every language worth mentioning. LFS doesn't care which language you use to connect to it with, so long as you follow the correct rules when communicating with the game.

There are pre-written InSim libraries around which can help massively with the task of writing an InSim program, so it would be a good idea learn a language which targets one of those libraries. The most prevalent InSim libraries these days seem to be LFS_External (.NET), LFSLib (.NET), JInSim (Java), CInSim (C/C++), and pyinsim (Python). You can find these in the Libs and Tools forum.

So your basic choice of language boils down to:

• .NET (which includes many languages, such as C#, VB.NET, Visual C++, IronPython, and IronRuby)
  
• Java
  
• C/C++
  
• Python
  

You can search on Google to find introductory tutorials on these programming languages, which should help you figure out which one to learn. I would suggest Python as a good language for beginners, but as the author of pyinsim I would be accused of bias.

Alright, thanks

DarkTimes; I tried Python after I learnt VB.Net and I think it's better to start with VB.net. VB.net has a really easy syntax, and you don't get lost in the spaces and tabs you have to place everywhere.

Sid; I should search in the Insim Library subforum for a good library like DarkTimes said. I worked with TronX's VB.net Insim Lib and it's really easy to work with as you have pre-defined actions. E.g. you have a sub when a player joins the server, when he leaves it, ...