I agree with FoxTrotUniform, functional languages are really great at getting your head in a new space. Assembly/C, I am not so sure about, its good to have an understanding (a solid one) of how a processor and computer works, but I don't see why you need to get that close to the metal to understand that, the levels of abstraction are there for a reason, to buffer you from the metal. Anyway, that is likely an unpopular opinion around here, as I know we have many a C/Assembly hacker lurking around the monostary, but it just never appealed to me as anything I wanted to get into seriously and actually program in (read about yes, program, ahhh not so much).

OOP is something that will not go away and you will likely find it more of a requirement as you continue to work/grow as a programmer. And not all OOP langauges are the same, there are many different types and styles out there. Java and C++ are ok (IMO of course), but they are sort of steps on an evolutionary ladder, of which I think C# is the next step (or half-step maybe). If you don't like Windows (which I don't myself, I am a Mac User all the way), then you can try out Mono, its not quite as finished as M$.NET, but its better than nothing. I recently delved into C# and I was very surprised at the insight I got from learning it (I also read a lot about the CLR and ILASM code as well which helped).

If you want to stay close to the perl community, you could look into Parrot and in particular PASM (Parrot Assembly Language). I know this contradicts what I said before about not bothering with assembly, but hey, life is full of contradicions, and its late :)

Anyway, good luck in your pursuit of knowledge, I personally find programming languages fascinating. And the best part, the more you know the easier it is to learn the next one.

Oh yeah, one last one, SQL. When you really delve into SQL it can be a very interesting langauge, very declarative.

-stvn

In reply to Re: If Perl was my first language... by stvn
in thread If Perl was my first language... by kiat

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