[Bradford] Re-learning coding

[Nick Rhodes]

As you are wanting to parse XML, makes sense to pick a language that has
good XML support/libraries.

I would add Ruby to Dave's suggestions, Go sounds interesting, but I don't
think it as widespread enough yet (well packaged and track record of
maintenance amongst Linux distros yet).

I can't stress enough how bad PHP is as a first language to learn - its not
so bad if you have a firm background in ANYTHING ELSE first.

I don't see the point of C# or Java in the Unix world - if you need the
performance rewrite JUST THE SLOW BITS in C and take advantage of the
brilliant interop that Ruby and Python has with C and keep the productivity
and maintenance advantages of Ruby/Python.

Python might be better to learn as you can write stuff procedural or OOP,
Ruby is OOP only, which may be better as you have no choice but to write
OOP - depends if you prefer to jump in at the deep end or swim for the
shallow end.

Cheers, Nick

On 16 November 2013 11:59, David Spencer <baildon.research at googlemail.com>wrote:

> Yo Andy!  Yeah it'll be good to see you again :-)
>
> I'm in the same boat as you.  Everything I've done since 198* has been
> shell scripting or equivalent (and can rant to order about what's
> wrong with bash).  I left uni with the 1980 version of object
> oriented, which was a great improvement on everything that followed in
> C++, Java etc (on the one hand) and the newer academic toy languages
> (on the other hand).
>
> I'd say the obvious choices are Python and Go.  Go looks really good
> to me.  Javascript is suddenly very trendy.  If you're tempted towards
> PHP or C++ or the faux-portability of C#, go and lie down until the
> feeling passes.
>
> Just my opinion
> -D.
>
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