On Tuesday 15 June 2004 18:06, Marv Boyes wrote: > Hello, everyone. I realize that this isn't a developer's list, but I get > the sense that there are more than a few developers here, and some of > the sharpest people I've yet encountered online. I'm looking for some > sage wisdom. ;) > > I haven't done any serious programming since Extended BASIC for Texas > Instruments' TI-99/4A. I lost interest in programming shortly after my > father brought our first Windows 3.1 machine into the house-- it was > easier to just accept what Microsoft fed me. Linux has gotten me > interested in learning how to do things for myself again, and I've had a > great time reading about the mindset and culture of coding. Having > gotten a fair handle on bash scripting, I'm interested in moving on to > something a little more advanced. Quite frankly, I'm a little > overwhelmed by the possibilities. > > These are a few of my liabilities and limitations: I'm in human services > management, which means I work long hours, and I'm on-call 24 hours, 7 > days a week. With my non-professional duties around the house, I don't > end up with a lot of leisure time. I've been isolated from the nuts 'n > bolts aspects of development, on any level, for a very long time. Even > two years after going "all Linux, all the time", I am still quite the > newbie. And despite a fair amount of research, I unfortunately don't > have the vaguest notion of which languages/development environments are > best for which purposes (for that matter, I have no real purpose yet, > other than to learn a bit about programming). > > Essentially, I don't imagine for a moment that my life will grant me the > time to become a serious programmer; at the same time, I certainly don't > expect to be able to code my own kernel or office suite from scratch > after a couple of days' study. I'm looking for a realtively gentle > introduction to programming in some sort of "standard" environment, to > see if it's something I can get both my mind and my interest around. > > I'm interested in knowing which languages are favored by some of the > "hobbyist" developers on this list, and why. Is there a particular > programming/scripting language which seems to naturally lend itself to > the beginner (while still being rich enough to produce some useful, if > not particularly 'killer', applications)? Relatively easy to learn; > powerful enough to create something other Linux users might find useful, > should I stick with it long enough. Should I dive right into C, or might > I be better-served by learning something about, for instance, Python or > Perl? And if I _really_ get nuts about programming and decide that I > want to give GUI-driven apps a try, are there languages which would lend > themselves to something like, say, gtk (or is that a language in itself? > See, utter newbie...). > > I would appreciate anyone's thoughts; feel free to respond off-list if > this post shouldn't have been here in the first place. ;) > > > Thanks, > Marv You may regret asking this question. I would recommend C, once you get a handle on that then progress to C++ and when you master those you can do anything. I started with "The C Programming Language" (The White Book) by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M Ritchie.Copyright 1978. They were the developers of C and rewrote UNIX in C so that we now have Linux. Dont assume that C is easy, it isnt, it is an exercise in logic like you may not have experienced before.
-- Regards; Hoyt
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