[ubuntu-us-in] Time for a change

[John C. Meuser]

Even though the thread is about dead, I'll go ahead and insert my $0.02.

Currently my favorite language is Ruby.  It has a very flexible syntax
and just feels right to me.  It works great in a web framework (RoR) or
as a general purpose scripting language.

I've been meaning to learn a bit of python, and would probably love it
for the same reasons that I love ruby (though the syntactically relevant
white space is something that REALLY annoys me).  Python being so
central to Ubuntu and having such a large number of add on libraries and
bindings definitely are appealing aspects to it.  So I would probably
recommend it.

Even though I am a sysadmin, I hate Perl with a passion.  I've never
really done anything with it, but the times that I've had to modify an
existing Perl script, I've wanted to tear my hair out.  I just can't
make heads or tails of Perl code.  If I sat down and learned it, I
probably wouldn't hate it quite so much though.

I have bad impressions of Java, but probably just because it was the
language I learned with.  I'm probably just remembering the confusion I
had learning how to program before I really understood the concepts.

I've never done anything with C#.  There are a few little things I don't
like about it.. things to prevent the programmer from shooting
themselves in the foot, but have a use if you know what you are doing.
Things like no fall-through for case statements, or no assignment
operator inside an if statement.  I understand them trying to prevent
common mistakes, but it would be nice if they allowed these things, but
just threw up a compiler warning.

My ultimate recommendation is to start with something easy which has
lots of documentation and examples, such as Ruby or Python, and then
keep learning new languages.  The more languages you learn, the easier
it is to pick up another one.

       John

On Sun, 2007-11-18 at 15:08 +0000, Daniel Dunn wrote:
> In my busy schedule of work, being a father, being a husband, and
> trying to let people know about Ubuntu, I have decided to learn a
> programming language. I learned VB in highschool, and i have dabbled
> with different languages since then, but not hing serious. I was
> wondering from the "Experts" what language would be a good start? I
> would love to give back to the Ubuntu community by helping to code and
> debug projects. I had been thinking about C#, but any recommendations
> would be helpful.
> 
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