I want to learn programming and I'm trying to find a language to start in.
I want a language I can write a to do program in && something I can easily bounce onto other languages from
Anyone have any thoughts on this
⇧
I want to learn programming and I'm trying to find a language to start in.
I want a language I can write a to do program in && something I can easily bounce onto other languages from
Anyone have any thoughts on this
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Becky • • •@Becky Choosing a programming language often depends on the target use. Will it be a Command-Line Interface tool? A Graphical User Interface? A web page? A program on a controller circuit (Arduino, etc...)?
From there, languages have affordances.
like this
Becky and Shelenn Ayres like this.
Becky
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •silverwizard
in reply to Becky • •Based on what I suspect it'll be a real basic DB frontend, with fancy outputs
But figuring out the front ends. And making modular to allow front ends, especially allowing several front ends, is, I think, the main goal
silverwizard
in reply to silverwizard • •like this
Hypolite Petovan, Shelenn Ayres and Dave like this.
Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Becky • • •Lorraine Lee likes this.
Becky
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Becky • • •@Becky So, first target one specific system with one specific front end. This will greatly reduce the scope of the required learning.
I started learning programming with command line programs in C because of the low learning overhead. I was also taught COBOL for file manipulation and Java for Object-Oriented Programming. In parallel, I had SQL classes on an Oracle system, but no integration with a programming language until my final project after 2 years of full-time classes.
It was a long process and it started pretty small, so I think that's what you should do as well to make it palatable.
like this
Linux Walt Alt (@lnxw37a2) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} and Lorraine Lee like this.
silverwizard
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Hypolite Petovan likes this.
Lapo Luchini
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • • •It's not the best language to start learning with maybe (personally I have a preference for strongly typed languages), but it's pretty flexible, under very active development both in syntax and ecosystem.
Lorraine Lee likes this.
Lorraine Lee
in reply to Becky • • •Hypolite Petovan likes this.
Becky
in reply to Lorraine Lee • •This is where my experience with @silverwizard has kinda messed with me. I know the way java works and it kinda irks me, although I know why you say it would be useful too, because it carries everything with it.....
This is why I'm a complicated case, I think.... because ultimately I've had too many people complain to me about languages... and by too many, I mostly mean one in particular lol
Dave
in reply to Becky • •If you want to get a to-do list manager up and running? Use Perl to shuffle things in and out of the database, use CGI and a web browser for the GUI, and that'll put you in the space where you can ask @silverwizard for help when you get stuck.
silverwizard
in reply to Dave • •I hear about Racket randomly, what is it?
Also - she doesn't wanna use the web and wants a GUI
Because she still doesn't believe google broke the web
Dave
in reply to silverwizard • •Racket is a variant of Scheme, designed by people who have put a lot of thought into programming and how to teach it, and does a good job of the space it's in. The downside is that its structure is (partly by historical accident) not very much like most programming languages that most people consider "serious".
And as annoying as web browsers are, CGI is still the easiest way to get a GUI, followed by "whatever your dev tooling thinks is native", with anything else way behind.
Lorraine Lee likes this.
silverwizard
in reply to Dave • •Yeah, I've thoughts about TKL and Lua bouncing in my head
We discussed Scheme as an option, but she is currently wanting to try a more procedural language
Becky
in reply to silverwizard • •Becky
in reply to Becky • •