[plug] Programming Languages

[The Thought Assassin]

On Tue, 19 Sep 2000, Christian wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 10:37:03AM +1000, Clint Carlson wrote:
> > As a new linux user I have been inspired to re-try my hand at programming,
> > Now I am looking for a language/builder that is simple to use but has good
> > functionality.
> <takes open can of worms from Clint>
> My god, what a question.  Are you sure you don't want to know which
> distribution is the best or even which editor? (Debian and vim, btw...)
You're doing well so far. :)

> Ok, well... there are probably a million and one opinions for this but
> here's mine.  If you want to do serious programming (or at least pretend
> to) then C is the way to go.
I would tend to agree there, too. C is not so easy for beginners, but if
you are programming to get things done, rather than to learn the Art, then
C is pretty much where it's at. If you are interested in programming for
programming's sake, then perhaps you should learn Smalltalk or Python or
Haskell as well/instead.

> You can probably pick it up from your Pascal background without too much
> difficulty but being a good C programmer takes a bit of practice
And usually, but not always, exposure to other languages/paradigms. Some
of the most beautiful code I have seen has been written in C - it allows
an elegant simplicity with which the programmer can do anything he or she
sees fit without constraint, and if the programmer is good at what they
do, the results reflect that almost perfectly. Chances are though, that
they learnt those ways of thinking and abstracting from use of some
bondage+discipline language forcing them to think that way in the past.

> If you want a fun language that's easy to use and is very flexible (plus
> has HEAPS of really easy to use libraries to do practically anything)
> then Perl is the way to go.
OTOH, if you learn Perl too early you will probably never become a _good_
programmer. Ditto Visual Basic. I don't know if it's a good idea to use
Perl too extensively until such time as you are broadly enough experienced
to understand what is wrong with it. That said, it is probably the world's
most useful scripting language as long as you don't have the intention of
learning good coding practices with it.

> It's probably a bit further away from Pascal than C in terms of syntax
Definitely.

> but it's much more forgiving
You make that sound like a good thing? :)

> and if you pick up a decent book (e.g., "Learning Perl") then you'll be
> up and running in no time.
Yep. If you have a task to do, learn Perl in a hurry. Then if have any
pretentions to becoming a good programmer, forget it even faster. :)

> The disadvantages of Perl (IMHO) are <...> it's syntax has a multitude
> of forms ("There's more than one way to do it!") which can get quite
> confusing at times, especially for a beginner.
Only for a beginner? What are your rates for maintaining Perl code?

> If you like object oriented things, or just want to see what all the
> fuss is about, then Python is probably the way to go.
No, if you want to see what the fuss is about, try Java.
If you want to learn about OO, then Python is a good suggestion. :)

> Syntactically it's also quite a bit simpler than Perl too.
My mind is boggling trying to think of a language of which this is false. 

> <prepares to pass worm can onto next person>
<shaking the can> "It's ready, who wants it now?"

-Greg