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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. >