First, I have not been programming nearly as long as any of you - just shy
of 20 years now.

I learned to program in C++ first.  Then Java.  Then Assembly.  I use none
of them now, but I still implement some habits and principles I learned
from those in the languages I use now.  It probably isn't the best path for
you, but it was my path.

My recommendation to those interested in coding, either professionally or
as a hobby, is to find your passion - find an application you can
immediately have an impact on, and see the result - and then get picky with
the language, if you must.  For me, at least, the most infuriating thing
was not having an application to apply whatever new skill I picked up on.


On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 10:24 AM, Sullivan, Mark V <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Not to be too pragmatic about it, but it is worth noting which languages
> are used in the wilds beyond the confines of our libraries.
>
> http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
>
> I know everyone has their own style, but I would push newbies towards
> object-oriented languages, such as C# or Java first.  Working in an
> enforced object-oriented programming [OOP] environment seems like an
> excellent first step.  Moving from either of those languages to Ruby (which
> is more compatible with procedural programming) is quite simple then.
>
> Clearly I am preaching from the pulpit of OOP though.
>
> Mark / UF
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> John Fereira
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 1:17 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] You *are* a coder. So what am I?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Joe Hourcle
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 12:37 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] You *are* a coder. So what am I?
>
> On Feb 18, 2013, at 11:17 AM, John Fereira wrote:
>
> >> I suggested PHP primarily because I find it easy to read and understand
> and that's it's very commonly used.  Both Drupal and Wordpress are written
> in PHP and if we're talking about building web pages there are a lot of
> sites that use one of those as a CMS.
>
> > And if you're forced to maintain one of those, then by all means, learn
> PHP ... but please don't recommend that anyone learn it as a first language.
>
> And the reason that I suggested PHP is that one is more likely going to be
> *forced* to learn PHP because it's so much more commonly used than
> something like Haskell, or R, or even Python.
>
>
>
>
>
> > I've looked at both good and bad perl code, some written some very
> accomplished software developers, and I still don't like it.   I am not
> personally interested in learning to make web pages (I've been making them
> for 20 years) and have mostly dabbled in Ruby but suspect that I'll be
> doing a lot more programming in Ruby (and will be attending the LibDevConX
> workshop at Stanford next month where I'm sure we'll be discussing Hydra).
>   I'm also somewhat familiar with Python but I just haven't found that many
> people are using it in my institution (where I've worked for the past 15
> years) to spend any time learning more about it.  If you're going to
> suggest mainstream languages I'm not sure how you can omit Java (though
> just mentioning the word seems to scare people).
>
> > It's *really* easy to omit Java:
>
> >
> http://www.recursivity.com/blog/2012/10/28/ides-are-a-language-smell/
>
> I generally take articles like that with a large heaping of salt when it's
> fairly obvious that someone is biased against a specific language but that
> article seems to be more about using an IDE than using Java.  In any case,
> I really didn't start using an IDE (I wrote all my code using a unix text
> editor) until several years after I learned Java.
>
> >You might as well ask why I didn't suggest C or assembler for beginners.
>  That's not to say that I haven't learned things from programming in those
> languages >(and I've even applied tricks from Fortran and IDL in other
> languages), but I wouldn't recommend any of those languages to someone
> who's just learning to > program.
>
> I remember when Pascal used to be the language of choice (actually, I
> remember when it was Basic) as an instructional programming language, but I
> cut my programming teeth using assembly language (more like the raw octal
> representation) and Fortran before I learned C.
>
> -Joe
>
> > (ps. I'm grumpier than usual today, as I've been trying to get hpn
> patched openssh to compile under centos 6 ... so that it can be called by a
> java daemon  that is called by another C program that dynamically generates
> python and shell scripts ... and executes them but doesn't always check the
> exit status ... this is one of those times when I wish some people hadn't
> learned to program, so they'd just hire someone else to write it)
>
> I feel your pain.  I've had plenty of days like that as well.
>