coding/programming question (non-gbpvr related)

[Etacovda]

Ok, so im currently building a solar space heater, in the typical kiwi #8 wire style - entirely home made. I will be making my own panels from old windows, getting a pair of pumps, and an old hot water cylinder/storage tank in which i will house water + rocks to hold the heat (heavily insulated). The basis of the system is such -

10m2+ of solar collector panels running water through some kind of heat exchanger (havent gotten entirely to that part yet, still deciding on materials/construction)
1x 200L+ tank with rocks to appreciate sufficient thermal mass
1x car heatercore + fan (obviously boxed up nicely as not to look terrible!)
2x pumps

so, when outside temp is hot enough that it will be generating decent heat vs the tank temperature, pump will operate to collect heat through solar panels.

internal pump will work when the following conditions are met - A) tank temp is significantly higher than internal temperature. B) time is within set limits/manual override is set to heat room.

I am heating a relatively small space, total of 30m2 or so, so nothing too significant. Obviously building this system with a view to increase panel size etc and have a decent project with it.

Temp sensing is done by dallas 1-wire sensors through serial port. 4 temp sensors monitor internal temp, tank top/bottom temp, and panel temp.
So far i am either logging through the two following methods -

using digitemp for windows - http://digitemp.com/software/windows/
or using logtemp (which i have found pretty damn good)
- http://www.mrsoft.fi/ohj01en.htm


now, to control the pump/fans i want to use relays via the parallel port of my pc - there are multiple ways of doing this, in many programming languages. I will be using windows xp as i will run it off my main gbpvr box, at least at first. both of the above progs output data from each sensor individually named with its own serial number for input into other programs. Logtemp offers many options for this, from xml, to csv, to straight to an sql db.

Now, my question is - i can program to the parallel port in many languages. What language would people recommend?

my options go from turbo c, to c#, to vb, java... i have had a very small amount of experience with vb in excel, but thats pretty much it. So i will be teaching myself from scratch - what i want to know is, what would be best for me to learn for future projects/programming? i dont want to learn a dead language!

any help appreciated

oh, of course - eventually i want to make a plugin for my gbpvr to be able to control the heating/cooling/variables with my remote, but thats the last step! This system wont be hot water heating just yet either, as i am in a rental - but i plan to make it able to be moved to a house when we buy one to be plumbed into the hot water to give hot water solar heating as well, with a 3rd pump + more sensors.

[Etacovda]

45 views + no opinions? im leaning towards c++ at present...

[fla]

I'm a C++ developer and never had problems finding work so I would vote for C++. Once you know C++, learning C# to write a gbpvr plugin is easy.

[SLR_65]

C is a very versatile language and well worth learning.

day++
dollar++

/Steve

[bgowland]

45 views + no opinions?

Well you did post in the General Discussion section so what do you expect?

im leaning towards c++ at present...

As others have said C/C++ is probably the best option for you. C in particular when dealing with I/O ports as, in many cases, it's only one level of abstraction away from the hardware.

I programmed in C/C++ about 11 or 12 years ago then had an 8 year break because the company I worked for used VB6/VBA (yeuch). When I started with C# about 4 years ago, I took to it like a duck to water.

Cheers,
Brian

[colin]

I would look at the open source apps for home automation. Python, perl, etc. would be possible options as well.

[Etacovda]

Well you did post in the General Discussion section so what do you expect?

As others have said C/C++ is probably the best option for you. C in particular when dealing with I/O ports as, in many cases, it's only one level of abstraction away from the hardware.

I programmed in C/C++ about 11 or 12 years ago then had an 8 year break because the company I worked for used VB6/VBA (yeuch). When I started with C# about 4 years ago, I took to it like a duck to water.

Cheers,
Brian

haha, yeah i didnt want to post it in developers since its so vastly OT - i think C wouldnt be a silly thing to use. I will look at home automation appts but I would rather learn a language for future projects than use a 'ready set go' sort of arrangement in which i would learn nothing. I will try C.

Thanks Guys

[Etacovda]

ok, so ive started learning visual c++. Looks like ill have a lot of fun ahead of me - very rewarding though!

cout <<" hello world" and all that

[CornStopper]

You would find using VB to control the parallel port difficult, in my experince, the best language to control the port at a low level is c, c++ or visual C, very powerful when it comes to controlling the ports.