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What's the next language you want to learn?


bascule

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Dave Thomas of the Pragmatic Programmers recommends learning one language a year (although probably doesn't himself)

 

What's the next one you're interested in learning?

 

While I'd really like to learn Lisp or Scheme, I think the next one I'd really like to learn is O'Caml. At one point I tried to learn plain vanilla ML, the language that O'Caml's ancestor CAML is based on. O'Caml was created by functional programming wizard Xavier Leroy, and combines modern declarative FP approaches like pattern matching with an extremely fast runtime. O'Caml has seen extensive use on Wall Street for stock market analytics, and was also used extensively by VMware for virtual server management.

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Actually I would like to look at what's being designed (or maybe having a go at this myself).

Is the CAML scene fairly hot on complexity theory? Where do you think languages like CAML will go, or if there are any solid-looking approaches to parallel languages, e.g.?

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  • 1 month later...

I was thinking of going into C++, but after I saw the tutorial, it was damn complicated.

 

I guess I'll turn to Basic!

 

I program in Python currently as a hobby.

I was told here that Python would a good program to start with, and it was so. I've learned quite a few stuffs with it.

 

Thanks SFN!

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darkshade:

The first language I learn was C (excluding the little bit of QBASIC when I was 13). And I would recommend C or C++ as a first language. If you know C, C++ and java (as well as many other languages) should be easy to learn since their syntax is based on C's.

 

So I say give it another shot. Maybe the tutorial you read was not directed towards complete beginners to programming.

 

Maybe some people here won't like this, but if you want to go into any science or engineering related field, java, python, and most of the other languages mentioned in this thread are completely worthless. The vast majority of code in my department is in C (there are a few very very old things still using FORTRAN and I know one person who has to use some perl occasionally).

 

As for myself, I am going to go into some of the more low-level features of c++ and then start learning Windows API or MFC.

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The first language I learn was C (excluding the little bit of QBASIC when I was 13). And I would recommend C or C++ as a first language. If you know C, C++ and java (as well as many other languages) should be easy to learn since their syntax is based on C's.

 

However, the only languages with semantics similar to C's are things like Pascal or Algol. If you intend on finding a good language to start with for the purpose of moving onto others, C's kind of a dead end.

 

Maybe some people here won't like this, but if you want to go into any science or engineering related field, java, python, and most of the other languages mentioned in this thread are completely worthless. The vast majority of code in my department is in C (there are a few very very old things still using FORTRAN and I know one person who has to use some perl occasionally).

 

I did scientific programming in Ruby, as did other people I know (they've all since moved onto other jobs).

 

For example, Ruby was used to coordinate production of these high resolution satellite maps of the Earth at night:

 

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/night_light_posters.html

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  • 2 weeks later...

I started with XHTML/CSS, moved onto Java/C++, then Ruby, and now I'm working on perfecting my PHP, Ruby, and C.

 

Python's next on my list =)

Others on my future want-to-learn list include:

BASIC, COBOL, Fortran, Perl, Pascal, MatLab

More for novelty entertainment than for an applicable purpose, though, haha.

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I would recommend that you use java. I don’t think moving through the C and C++ chain is recommended in programming is to be hobby or light in use. Those other languages I mentioned have far reaching capabilities not typically found in java, like pointers, though at times I thought the indirect member selector was a dynamic pointer casting type event but that was just illusion. Java also for lack of better words in highly portable, so your neat program wont jam up on some projector screen if you have to present programs for class work, such as a C++ .exe file might run fine on your system, yet hit a bug on your friends. Also if you come to like java a lot in time and or programming java is very much like other popular modern programming languages, like C, or cplus.

 

Java I think is just more user friendly overall for general purpose, it also has a giant user community and tons of features.

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If you want a more beginner type of language, Looks like you want to learn something like Python, then work your way down to a more powerful language like C/C++ or Java, but this is not necessary if you don't want to do it this way.

 

Most likely you'll be going through a series of learning curves, ... and then you'll never stop learning. Such is the life of a programmer.. and one of the fun parts about it.

 

Some concepts you'll end up covering in the beginning:

-Basic Data Structures

-Basic Program Structure

-Compilation and Makefiles (ie gcc) and other tools

-Debugging

-Object oriented programming

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  • 1 year later...

Now that I finally have a computer all to myself (and a wireless keyboard so I don't have to sit up), I think I'm gonna go with Python and go from there. Honestly I'll probably try to pick it up in the next couple days, right after I try to get another HDD to throw another operating system on!

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Im new to programming and they are teaching us "Delphi" at school.

 

I also want to learn another language but one that i can easily teach myself and easily get tutorials etc for. It must also preferably be similar to delphi and not to complex.

 

Ideas ??

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Erlang could be interesting.

 

Erlang's an interesting language to learn if you're interested in concurrent/distributed computing. That said it's pretty ugly and somewhat difficult to use for day-to-day programming tasks.

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  • 1 month later...

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