[NTLUG:Discuss] Direction Recomendations

[Kevin Brannen]

Richard Cobbe wrote:
> 
> Lo, on Thursday, 20 July, 2000, Steve Baker did write:
> 
> >
> > Language wars tend to get very heated and passionate...tread with care!

Yes, but as long as we all realize this is for fun and have a good attitude,
it can be enjoyable too. :-)

> > Perl is a nasty mess IMHO - learn it only if you absolutely need
> > it - certainly not as your first language.  Other people are
> > passionate about it - so I expect to be contradicted on this one.
> 
> Amen.  Linguists should never be allowed to design programming languages
> without adult supervision. [1] [2]
> 
> This is not to say that Perl is not useful.  In particular, it's
> string-handling facilities are wonderful.  There are, however, better
> languages available for almost everything.

I guess I'd fall into the "passionate" category.  I love Perl--it is the
closest thing that *I* have found to a "silver bullet" language (I know Fred
Brooks says those things don't exist, but I did say close. :-)  It's memory
management & string handling have already been mentioned; those are 2 of it's
biggest advantages.  In fact, it's string handling is why I use it at work, as
we do "natural langage processing".

However, with that said, it is not a good language to be teaching people how
to program for the first time.  It is definitely for experienced people only. 
One could say it's like a power tool, with all the normal warnings included.
:-)

<asbestos underware>
As a first language, I'd suggest learning Basic.  It's simple, yet has all the
general constructs:  variables, assignments, loops, flow control, and
subroutines.  I found there's even a Basic for Linux when I loaded SuSE last
time.  One could spend a couple of weeks with Basic, get general programming
concepts down, then move on to C and have a career there.  Or you can branch
off into other langauges after C.
</asbestos underware>

Programming is one place where it literally pays to be multilingual. :-) 
Steve came up with a pretty good list, but the heart of it is:  What do you
want to do?  Decide that, then learn what you need.

My 2 cents worth...
Kevin