if programming languages interest you, you will probably enjoy reading Lambda the Ultimate on a regular basis. intelligent, well-reasoned language comparisons are common there.

personally, i've coded in: C, C++, perl, java, javascript, ML, haskell, XSLT, rexx, SQL, bash, python and several flavors of assembly (MIPS, x86, and Z-80).

i find perl to be the most pleasant to use for the widest variety of tasks. plenty of power without having to do lots of busy work type stuff (like memory management in C/C++ or the annoying type system in java) without forcing me into one particular programming style (functional, OO, procedural, etc). C, assembly, javascript, and SQL each have domains where they are the only option available so you're basically stuck with them. learning functional languages like haskell and ML did wonders for my ability to reason about programs. actually using them though, i found too many things that should have been simple but weren't (eg, basic IO and text processing). python is pretty nice too; python with TKinter makes GUI programming quite painless.

it sounds like you already have a good grasp of functional and procedural programming. maybe a good next step for you would be to learn some assembly. becoming familiar with exactly how things work at that low level can't hurt. you probably won't actually do much assembly programming in your career but the understanding it creates is priceless.

anders pearson

In reply to Re: Other languages besides perl by thraxil
in thread Other languages besides perl by dimmesdale

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