asc wrote:
> On Feb 27, 3:31 am, Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote:
>> asc wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> I've decided it's about time to learn a programming language and I
>>> believe the best platform to use would be linux.
>> Want to stir up a real flood of posts? Ask for suggestions as to which language
>> to learn.

> I'm intrigued now. I'm probably going to learn Python, but if anyone
> has any other suggestions I would be interested to hear them.

You have a very perverted sense of humor. Everyone knows the best language,
their favorite. Let the flood commence.

The traditional way is to start with Pascal, turbopascal.org, but after doing a
few basic exercises move on to more commonly used language. Pascal gives you a
straightforward introduction to structuring programs and the basic things you
will need to do in any language in a language much more readable than most.
Actually my first language was Fortran II before it was called Fortran 68.

One of the first things to realize is you do not want to reinvent the wheel
when programming. You are going to plagiarize intensely. The next thing to
recognize is that different areas of programming tend to have a most common
language. Therefore the question is not which language but what interests you
most and choose the most common language used in that field.

The third thing to realize is once you get into programming you will learn
several languages so what you pick now is not a final commitment. But if you do
steps one and two then you will have the motivation to keep at it and many
source code examples of how to do it to learn/copy/steal for your own projects.

--
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed." archliberal Dwight David Eisenhower
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3745
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
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