Hi Stuart,<br><br>Some interesting suggestions there. I do feel I need to stick up for Java here as lots of people like to criticise it (not here though I must add). Java is a platform (not just a language) that enables to you build anything from small embedded systems through desktop apps to the large scale enterprise web applications.<br>
<br>It isn't as fast as something written in C or C++, but it will still be faster than most of the interpreted languages out there. Plus compilation provides additional error checking etc. Java is strongly typed, which I personally prefer. I'm yet to find a reason why you may need weak typing - maybe it's just the way I program.<br>
<br>The problem with Java is that it is massive. There are libraries to do so much and that scares some people off. Also like C++ is takes a bit to get your head around it all at first, but once you get the basics and OO in general things like Javadoc are great.<br>
<br>Java is the most widely used language so as a skill it's very valuable. The two types of development jobs that are always out there are Java & PHP, so that's always a plus (please note I'm ignoring the .net jobs as that's normally C# and that's just really Java anyway :-) )<br>
<br>Like editors, everyone has their favourites and often dislikes the competition! I'm not saying that Java is the best for everything, but I've programmed in it for a long time now and it's always done the job really well. If I were to start from scratch I may consider going for C++ instead, but that would limit me slightly. Apart from that I can't see anything else that would be capable of what I require.<br>
<br>If you fancy something bleeding edge, you could always try Newspeak (<a href="http://bracha.org/Site/Newspeak.html">http://bracha.org/Site/Newspeak.html</a>), see FLOSS weekly for an interview with the creator by Dan.<br>
<br>My thoughts anyway!<br><br>Les<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 5 April 2011 08:45, Michael Crilly <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mrcrilly@gmail.com">mrcrilly@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<font size="-1">Perl + Catalyst or PHP + Symfony, couple with any DB
back-end you want.</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
On 04/04/2011 22:42, Stuart Burns wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">I knew someone would come up with some "odd" ones :)<br>
<br>
TBH to my mind, it is just an exercise in seeing what I can do. My
day job is all VMware and Linux infrastructure so I don't get to
do any programming (well powershell for vmware automation but
thats about it) I can hack perl together if I need to.<br>
<br>
I can give you an example. I have what I think is a good idea for
a website, but I don't currently have the skills to implement it
:)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 4 April 2011 21:35, Sebastian Arcus <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:shop@open-t.co.uk" target="_blank">shop@open-t.co.uk</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
<div><br>
<br>
On 04/04/2011 08:53 PM, Richard Smedley wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
On 04/04/11 18:44, Stuart Burns wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
I just thought I would drop an email to ask for some
advice re: programming<br>
languages to learn. Now that I have time on my hands (at
last) I am looking<br>
to learn a language that can be used for both web
development as well as<br>
locally on the PC.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
1. JavaScript.<br>
No, seriously, it is a proper language.<br>
Take a look at:<br>
<a href="http://eloquentjavascript.net/" target="_blank">http://eloquentjavascript.net/</a><br>
(& you can move on to node.js afterwards :)<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
</div>
In that case, I suppose an option for programming local apps
would be the XULrunner platform from Mozilla. It is what
Firefox and Thunderbird is built on. You program the interface
in XUL (which is a mark-up language, quite easy to
understand), and the logic in Javascript. I found it all quite
interesting, and the multiplatform aspect helps. However, few
months ago when I tried it, the printing feature was a bit of
a major PITA - so I started looking elsewhere. I liked most
everything else though. It only has access to SQLite databases
at the moment, but there was talk of implementing an ODBC
driver which would allow connections to a lot of other RDBMS's
though.<br>
<font color="#888888">
<br>
Sebastian</font>
<div>
<div><br>
<br>
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