Language question

[Liam Proven]

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 6:38 AM, Mark Widdicombe
<mwiddicombe at shoprite.co.za> wrote:
>>From: ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com [ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Sandy Harris [sandyinchina at gmail.com]
>>Sent: 30 October 2010 04:13
>
>>Not to start a religious war, but I need advice on which
>>language to use for an application.
>
>>The app is language learning software. It needs to
>>read text files, do a bit of parsing, present stuff on
>>the screen, get user input & give feedback. Nothing
>>very complex, just a general-purpose interactive
>>program.
>
>>There are some complications: The program is
>>experimental and is likely to be revised a fair bit.
>>Also, it needs to run on at least Linux (development
>>& some students) and Windows (many students),
> i>deally on Mac as well.
>
>>My first thought is TCL, which I understand was
>>designed for this sort of thing. Is that the right
>>choice? What other possibilities are there?
> <snip>
>
> Have a look at Python.  With your skills, he learning curve will be shallow; it does
> everything you want, and it's multi-platform.

I'd second that. I've not wrapped my head around Python yet, but of
all the modern scripting languages, it's the most capable, and I've
seen substantial GUI apps written in Python.

Perl has a tendency to degenerate into linenoise. Ruby is heavily
focussed on database-based Web apps. PHP is for building web pages.
TCL/Tk is, I believe, /very/ old-fashioned now, only one step past AWK
and SED.

Python, to me as a former BASIC programmer, is quite readable,
inasmuch as I can follow it.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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