[NTLUG:Discuss] Wanting to speak the language

[Justin M. Forbes]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 10:05:27PM -0600, Andrew Brown wrote:
> So here I am standing on the beach staring at the ocean of machine
> languages wondering... where to now?! So I lean once again on my
> faithful NTLUG to lead me onward and upward. I know it is a dumb
> question, but which language first? C++ Perl Python Java.... Tcl... oh
> my... Google is nice at giving me info on each, but all I get is "choose
> me, choose me" reading... advice would be nice!
> 
This largely depends on why you want to learn the language, and what you
plan to do with it once you have learned it...  Since you put this into an
open source context, there is a good starting point for you.  If you are
looking to work on a particular project, the language options are largely
chosen for you.  If you wish to read/understand/contribute you will need to
know the language of the project.  Some examples:

Kernel: C and perhaps assembler depending on what aspect of the kernel.
KDE: Largely C++
Gnome: C and starting to pick up some mono development

A large majority of the vendor supported distro utilities are now written
in or being ported to python, so there is a strong case for that one,
particularly if you are a Specifix or Red Hat user.  

If your plan is web based, PHP, perl and python can all be very useful,
pick one. Java has it's uses as well, though not nearly as much outside of
the enterprise.

If you are wanting to do mainly system administration type tasks, perl is
the most common language outside of shell.

There are several choices.  One thing you will find, once you have learned
a language, and become familiar with code, picking up new languages is more
a matter of syntax than anything else.  Fairly simple.  There have not been
any great revolutions in programming for many years, and you will find most
modern languages similar in many aspects.

Justin