What is the better language to learn?

[S_Grimm]

So I'm taking Programming, and my teacher is going to let me learn whatever language i want. So, I am asking for your opinons. What language should i learn?

[StealthArcher]

Latin.


Seriously.

[Insectoid]

Learn Either Java, Python, or Turing. Java is easy and great if you want to do in-browser or multi-platform programs. Python is just fun. And has easy syntax. Turing is ridiculously simple, though restricted in what you can do. Turing is more for learning common algorithms and how programming works, without worrying about complicated syntax.

[S_Grimm]

i already know turing, and java. is python a better language? i mena, well turing sucks, and the school still teaches Ready to Program fo java, which is console dependant.

[Insectoid]

oh, lol, I didn't even look at who was asking the question. Seeing as you are quite a bit ahead of me at the moment, I have no idea what to tell you. I for one will be learning Python, followed by one of the C's.

[S_Grimm]

ok thanks. ill have to try python sometime. any other recommendations?

[Tony]

I've talked about this before, but to reiterate it:

It doesn't matter what syntax you pick, if you'll simply be writing out what you already know. It will be a waste of time (in terms of you not learning anything sufficiently new).

So the question is where in Computer Science you are at, right now, and what is the next big thing that you want to get your head around?

Object Orientation? -- Smalltalk, Objetive-C, etc.
Functional Programming? -- Scheme, Scala, etc.
Concurrent Programming? -- Erlang

Python and Ruby are awesome because they are multi-paradigm and let you try out a lot of different things, in different ways.

If you want to play more with data-structures and low level memory management -- C is a good choice.

[btiffin]

Umm, can anyone guess which language I'd suggest?

REBOL

Cheers

[S_Grimm]

what is REBOL?

[wtd]

O'Caml would be my vote when it comes to functional programming.

Otherwise, Ruby or Python are decent.

[jbking]

Lisp would be another one in the functional programming arena if you want some advanced.

Have you done much scripting, e.g. batch files, Windows Script Host files, etc. or Perl come to mind?

[Clayton]

My vote to Ruby or Python, but as Tony said, it does not matter which syntax you use. Outside of learning to code in a different paradigm, you're just going to be doing the same thing as before.

[CodeMonkey2000]

HTML is really awesome

Pascal would be the easiest step away from turing, since the syntax is similar, and it is supported by SDL.

[wtd]

Clayton @ Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:29 am wrote:

My vote to Ruby or Python, but as Tony said, it does not matter which syntax you use. Outside of learning to code in a different paradigm, you're just going to be doing the same thing as before.

Learning to code in a different "paradigm" or different language with a different syntax is about making different things easy. By learning this new syntax you come to realize things you would not otherwise have been inclined to explore.

[btiffin]

A\V @ Wed Oct 01, 2008 2:25 pm wrote:

what is REBOL?

The Relative Expression Based Object Language. The better way of computing.

Very little syntax, bags of datatype semantics and word contexts. An almost completely different way of approaching data processing, that in a weaker disguise, almost looks like normal programming. Until you start to get it, then it becomes an absolute gem of productivity.

The console prompt being >>, display a webpage title;

code:

>> parse read http://compsci.ca [thru <title>  copy pagetitle  to </title>]  print pagetitle

http://www.rebol.com homebase and downloads, http://www.rebol.org public library, http://rebol.net developer site

Cheers