I used to really like Turbo Pascal, but C++ just gives you so much more freedom. If you're a beginning programmer, C isn't for you, however. You can do absolutely anything in C++ that you can do in any other language except in a few cases assembly. BASIC and it's derivatives, Pascal, Lisp, pretty much any other language will impose limitations on what you can do, but C++ is about as close to assembly as it comes without being assembly.