Learning a New Language

[mike_w]

As per the title, I fancy learning a programming language. Of course, the biggest problem is, which one?

It would have to be pretty well documented on the web, so that there are plenty of resources on the internet that I can use. If I decide that I actually enjoy the language, I'll probably purchase a book, so suggested titles are welcome as well!

Many moons ago, I dabbled with Visual Basic - while I wouldn't want to use something like that (i.e. Microsoft!), I would like a language that allows me to create something usable reasonably quickly. Preferably, it would be reasonably simple to use GTK2 with it, but that's not particularly important.

Any suggestions, or pros and cons of some languages? I know the question is a bit vague, but I thought this would be the best way to get started.

Thanks in advance

Mike.

[Norky]

Perl is good, it's an interpreted language but can be compiled. If not, try C.

[Kezzer]

Java is good when you realise WHY it is good.

[aidanjt]

I still don't know why its good

Oh, I recommend C, its the premise for all modern languages, once you get the hang of it then the jump to C++ will be fairly easy. Of course you could skip C and go straight to C++, I got C++: A Beginners Guide, and I found it easy to get the hang of C++ using it.

[RedPutty]

I started out with basic and VB too.

Perl is indeed good and I am fairly sure it has a module for producing GTK apps with. It is also easy to get in at an easy level without having to learn much. There is a LOT of stuff on the web and a module to do pretty much anything you can imagine at cpan.org . The best book to start with is Learning Perl from O'Reilly.

Java is OK but is actually relatively difficult to get started on, then it seems a bit easier and then as you get further in starts to become difficult again, you could use GTK with it but would probably find yourself having to learn Swing or one of the other GUI things (I program web apps so dont know much about them).

[Kezzer]

Well the advantage of Java is that it's platform independant but people take this too lightly. You can install a JVM onto a server and then not have to worry about migrating any server side stuff to another server. Yes, it may be slower than other languages but it has lots of features. I use it primarily for many applications but that's me

[TheAnimus]

Java is good when you realise WHY it is good.

but only because you realise c# is so much better.

.net is probably worth learning, as the framework by MS will let you swiftly create powerfull aplica..... etc.

remeber the CLR and c# are ECMA standards, the same can't be said for java. Thats why it gets my vote.

C++ is ghastly. C isn't object orientated.

masm32 is good if you want to be all 13.37

[aidanjt]

How can you call C++ 'ghastly' when your only complaint about C is lack of OOP?.. which isn't always a bad thing.

C++ (even if you don't use classes or Templates) can allow a developer to produce cleaner code than C to boot.

[Iain]

Python looks interesting

[eldren]

A second vote for Python. I've never used it, but a bunch of programmer friends of mine rave on about it. It's very versatile (Can be used to do scripts, full programs, and websites), powerful (Lots of libraries and language features. Not as much as Perl, but they're working on it) and already has support from some big projects (BitTorrent, for example, was written in Python).

[aidanjt]

I havn't used python myself, but I notice there are a good few fairly complex applications and systems written in it, Portage, and ABC to name a few.

[TheAnimus]

How can you call C++ 'ghastly' when your only complaint about C is lack of OOP?.. which isn't always a bad thing.

C++ (even if you don't use classes or Templates) can allow a developer to produce cleaner code than C to boot.

I really don't see the need for it, thats all.

Its syntax for objects isn't as clean as java or c#, and its got many flaws which have been addressed in newer languages (like oak and c#). But i don't want to start sounding like Verity Stob in been a troll of the language, I do often right C code in ++ for small projects. Its just its so arcain, and it has inter-platform issues, a JIT'd langauge has so many advantages right now.

[aidanjt]

I don't know what's unclean about MyClass myObject; or MyClass *myObject = new MyClass;

or myObject.dosomething(); or myObject->dosomething();

its pretty clean and logical to me, and afaik nearly all languages base their OOP syntax on C++, just in a much more limited fashion.

Another useful adition was adding variable declaration support in loops.. Although it can cause pointers to go out of scope, its the programmers job to not do that.

I do understand the need for JIT'd languages for 'portability' reasons, but porting C++ applications between platforms is more than possible from one project branch. Open Source developers do it all the time, albeit at the expense of time, if thats an issue. IMO companies are trying to do 100000 things with their apps in a day and if thats how they think software development works then they should look into moving to a different field.

[directhex]

both perl and c# can be fun & rewarding languages

both have a fair degree of documentation out there, though unfortunately there's not all that much documentation on the GTK# and GTK2-Perl projects. i'm currently writing a tool to replace much of our old user management, in perl, with swappable user interfaces (currently i have a text-based and GTK2-based interface), and I've ported a VB application to GTK2-Perl before (I tried to use c#, but lacked adequate documentation, where perl is far easier to guess your way around when in doubt)

[aidanjt]

both perl and c# can be fun & rewarding languages

both have a fair degree of documentation out there, though unfortunately there's not all that much documentation on the GTK# and GTK2-Perl projects. i'm currently writing a tool to replace much of our old user management, in perl, with swappable user interfaces (currently i have a text-based and GTK2-based interface), and I've ported a VB application to GTK2-Perl before (I tried to use c#, but lacked adequate documentation, where perl is far easier to guess your way around when in doubt)

*nod* Perl and Python are both equally capable languages, whichever you feel more comfortable with really. Both languages have bindings to all the popular APIs.

[directhex]

*nod* Perl and Python are both equally capable languages, whichever you feel more comfortable with really. Both languages have bindings to all the popular APIs.

i'd take perl over python, as python is whitespace-sensitive, and i have a very individual whitespace/tabbing style i don't want to compromise