On Fri, 30 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> I want to learn a programming language, and am wondering what language to
> choose...
What do you want to do with it?
> I still remember a little bit of the C that I took in school, and I am
> fairly confident that I could whip off a "Hello World!" program in under an
> hour. I have also played a bit with Perl, and that it shouldn't take me much
> longer to write hello world in perl than it did in C. I do not have any real
> skill in either so I could just drop both of them in favour of something
> new.
>
> I want to get more serious than just playing around with it, I want to start
> developing my own applications to meet the needs I have. So to the crux of
> the matter, which to choose?
What sort of apps?
> Well to me the first step is to determine what type of language I want to
> learn: Compiled or Interpreted?
Much less important than what you want to accomplish. You will
have a hard time doing full grpahical applications in perl or
python (though you can). But if you want to do mostly sysadmin
type stuff, they are a far better choice.
> Now for Interpreted languages, the choice really comes down to the 2 big
> boys for me anyway,
> Perl and Python.
> Which is easier to learn, and ultimately use?
This is essentially a religious war. Perl has more history
behind it but I think Python might be better if you want to
build graphical apps. I haven't used Python, though.
> For compiled languages, I am looking at C/C++
C++ is based closely on C. However, the theory behind the
languages are VERY different. C is procedural while C++ is
object-oriented. "They" say that if you know C (or other
procedural language), it will take you about 1.5 years of
programming in a object-oriented language (C++, Java, etc.)
before you are really comfortable with the paradigm.
Of course, C++ is far more in demand than C.
Java, in my opinion, is a much easier way to learn OO than C++.
I learnt C (as about my fourth programming language), then C++.
I hated it. Then I learnt Java and suddenly C++ made sense.
Now I use C++ more than Java. :)
Java may, in addition, give you more ability to do things...
because if you learn C++, you are also going to have to learn
something like Qt or Gtk for making graphical interfaces.
> Problem there is I have heard that you should not look at them combined but
> as separate entities. Some books I have looked at have said that if you are
> a beginner, and want to learn C++ it is best that you don't know C so you
> can start fresh in OOP, and not have to unlearn concepts from C. Others have
> said that you should have a strong basis in C before you learn C++.
In my opinion, knowing C is a hinderance when it comes to
learning C++. But no more so than knowing Pascal or some other
procedural language.
> Anybody know of some good books on these languages? Thanks in advance for
> any advice.
I'll recommend such books to you but only off-list as we have
strayed pretty far from the designated topic of this list now.
:)
--
Christopher Thompson http://hypocrite.org/
"Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same
time will that it should become a universal law."
_______________________________________________
Stormlinux-users-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.stormix.com/community/lists/listinfo/stormlinux-users-list
