[Chester LUG] Looking to learn a language

[Les Pritchard]

Very interesting.

I was going to suggest that we could maybe cover this at the next LUG meet?
There's been quite a few suggestions on different languages during this
discussion - would those who have made suggestions be happy to give a quick
demo / talk (all informal) on their language of choice? I think it would be
a really good opportunity for us all to see something different.

Les

On 18 April 2011 16:46, David Holden <dh at iucr.org> wrote:

> Guardian Tech on using
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/developer-blog/2011/apr/18/scala
>
> Dave.
>
>
> On 05/04/11 12:30, David Holden wrote:
> > If I didn't have so much invested in Perl I'd probably go Ruby. It's
> > nicely objected oriented and generally doesn't try to be too clever
> > *couch* python *couch*.
> >
> > I would agree with Les, I don't think performance should be a worry with
> > Java now but it is massive and they abstract the hell out of everything.
> >
> > I find PHP a mess but it is very powerful.
> >
> > If you want Java like by more of a scripting language I've always been
> > meaning to look at either Scala or Judoscript. Judoscript particularly
> > looks interesting from a sysadmin point of view.
> >
> >  Cheers,
> >
> >  Dave.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 05/04/11 10:07, Les Pritchard wrote:
> >> Hi Stuart,
> >>
> >> 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.
> >>
> >> 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.
> >>
> >> 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.
> >>
> >> 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 :-) )
> >>
> >> 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.
> >>
> >> If you fancy something bleeding edge, you could always try Newspeak
> >> (http://bracha.org/Site/Newspeak.html), see FLOSS weekly for an
> >> interview with the creator by Dan.
> >>
> >> My thoughts anyway!
> >>
> >> Les
> >>
> >> On 5 April 2011 08:45, Michael Crilly <mrcrilly at gmail.com
> >> <mailto:mrcrilly at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >>     Perl + Catalyst or PHP + Symfony, couple with any DB back-end you
> want.
> >>
> >>
> >>     On 04/04/2011 22:42, Stuart Burns wrote:
> >>>     I knew someone would come up with some "odd" ones :)
> >>>
> >>>     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.
> >>>
> >>>     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 :)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     On 4 April 2011 21:35, Sebastian Arcus <shop at open-t.co.uk
> >>>     <mailto:shop at open-t.co.uk>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>         On 04/04/2011 08:53 PM, Richard Smedley wrote:
> >>>
> >>>             On 04/04/11 18:44, Stuart Burns wrote:
> >>>
> >>>                 I just thought I would drop an email to ask for some
> >>>                 advice re: programming
> >>>                 languages to learn. Now that I have time on my hands
> >>>                 (at last) I am looking
> >>>                 to learn  a language that can be used for both web
> >>>                 development as well as
> >>>                 locally on the PC.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>             1. JavaScript.
> >>>                No, seriously, it is a proper language.
> >>>                Take a look at:
> >>>             http://eloquentjavascript.net/
> >>>                (&  you can move on to node.js afterwards :)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>         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.
> >>>
> >>>         Sebastian
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>
> >>
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>
> --
> Dr David Holden. (dh at iucr.org)
>
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