which progrraming language to learn first

[Arjan Geven]

On 7/15/05, Al Gordon <runlevel7 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/15/05, Mustafa Abbasi <lordverminard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > i have recently started using linux and since its my summer vacations i
> > wantedto learn a language.
> 
> . . .
> 
> Even though I am not a Python programmer (but can do quite a bit with
> Perl), I'd recommend Python over Perl.  Why?  If you're teaching
> yourself how to program, using Perl, you're very likely to end up
> teaching yourself bad programing habits that'll be hard to break
> later.  Python, as I understand it, forces you to code in a cleaner
> manner.
I second that. As a self-tought Perl-programmer (well not really, but
I used it for programming), I can say that pretty much every other
language gives you a more decent structure for programming. Perl can
be very good and very effective, but Perl-code is very often
impossible to read for people other than the original programmer.
Learn Python, Java, or something else that forces decent code.

Arjan.