Re: C or C++ to go with Perl.

Perl is part of the "C family" - i.e. a language syntactically inspired by C (like Java, Javascript, etc), so if learning C some things will be familiar - insignificant whitespace; many of the operators; some functions (printf, sprintf, etc); braces as block delimiters; semicolons as statement separators; etc.

Some things in C are quite painful though; memory management is done manually - you often need to deallocate the memory used by variables when you've finished using them - it lacks an automatic garbage collector. And personally I've never been especially happy with the lack of a native string data type (strings are just arrays of characters).

But C/C++ is one of the most widely used programming languages in the world - perhaps the most widely used. So it will stand you in good stead that way.

Another direction to consider is something like Ada - a high level, object-oriented language which can compile down to machine code. (Ada has been on my "to learn" list for some time, but recent events have pushed Scala up the list.)

perl -E'sub Monkey::do{say$_,for@_,do{($monkey=[caller(0)]->[3])=~s{::}{ }and$monkey}}"Monkey say"->Monkey::do'

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Re^2: C or C++ to go with Perl. by Tommy (Chaplain) on Jan 18, 2013 at 22:14 UTC
recent events have pushed Scala up the list Chromatic's reddit post re: Moe? Tommy A mistake can be valuable or costly, depending on how faithfully you pursue correction	[reply]
Re^3: C or C++ to go with Perl. by tobyink (Canon) on Jan 18, 2013 at 22:53 UTC
Indeed. I don't read reddit, but read about Moe from the horse's mouth. `perl -E'sub Monkey::do{say$_,for@_,do{($monkey=[caller(0)]->[3])=~s{::}{ }and$monkey}}"Monkey say"->Monkey::do'`	[reply]
Re^4: C or C++ to go with Perl. by Tommy (Chaplain) on Jan 18, 2013 at 23:32 UTC
When I heard, I thought it was insane. The title of his talk offended me... Then I went and read it. Then I thought about how awesome it would be starry look in eyes. I thought about the fun, the possibilities. I felt inspired. I began to understand... that it just. might. be. true. maybe. Time will tell, as it always does. I hope it does "light the fire", bring about the changes we need. We *deserve* the Perl that he's talking about. We can do better, and we should. Tommy A mistake can be valuable or costly, depending on how faithfully you pursue correction	[reply]