Mark Young wrote:
I have no real need to learn anything for a job, it's just a hobby right
now. I mostly just want "a programming language that has a different
philosophy or approach than
Python". However, you guys are right, if I just learn a language without a
reason, it will be worthless.
When I tried to learn C++, I just got extremely confused, I didn't even
understand the basic "Hello World" script. I may have given up too quickly;
maybe I should try again, or maybe I'll try C.
I was thinking about Java, and I heard about Lisp, I heard that it would
supposedly make you a better programmer or something. I looked at Lisp, but
I wasn't sure which one to use, Scheme or Common Lisp. I think I heard the
same about Haskell, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly.
Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'm thinking about trying to go back to
C++ or C, to study a a lower level language, or maybe Lisp, just to see
different techniques in a high level language. I guess I have to accept that
things will be different in any language, and if I want to learn different
methods and gain new abilities, I'll just have suck it up and start reading.
One of the problems with C++ is that it insisted on being a superset of
C, in order to gain acceptability. And although it evolved away, C
started evolving towards it, so they've been chasing each other down an
interesting road. And one of the advantages is that you can generally
use the same compiler for both, and even link files made with one with
ones made with the other. I'd mention that out of the 25+ languages
I've used professionally over the years, C++ is one of my top three
favorites.
On the other hand, perhaps you should learn something that has
practically nothing in common with Python. Forth is at a different
extreme. The entire interpreter/compiler can be defined in maybe 50
lines of (Forth) code. It essentially has no syntax, and the programmer
is free to add things that in other languages would be considered
syntax. To put it another way, IF is a library function that changes
how the subsequent code gets compiled. And although it's standard (or
builtin if you prefer), there's nothing stopping you from building your
own language extensions. Symbols have no restrictions on character set,
although generally it's tough to have embedded spaces in them.
I don't know how the language has evolved since the ANS standard (XJ14 I
believe it was 1994); I got into other things. When I used it,
extensive libraries were not a strong point. But some of the concepts
are mind-blowing.
Forth was originally conceived and used for astronomy, where the
computer controls for a telescope had to be reprogrammed in minutes for
changing weather conditions. It then expanded many places where small
execution size was essential, in embedded systems, pda's, etc. There
have been a few processors that essentially used Forth as their machine
language, and programming was essentially the art of adding instructions
to the machine. I have such a machine in storage somewhere, which had
4k of RAM and 4k of Prom. Nearly half of that PROM was unneeded, as the
compiler, interpreter, debugger and editor didn't need that much space.
The RAM was limiting however, for doing problems involving lots of data.
DaveA
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