Re: which language for programming

[Joseph Wakeling]

Doug Wellington wrote:
> Why can't you communicate with others using VB and/or AppleScript?  I
> would submit that it's easier to create a graphical application with
> VB than just about any other programming language.  If you want to
> communicate via windows, menus, buttons, etc, what's easier than VB?
> (And heck, once you learn VB, you can leverage that to write scripts
> in MS Office apps if you're so inclined...)

Simple---because with VB and/or AppleScript you are tying yourself to
one platform, or at any rate biasing yourself heavily.  If I write in
Perl or Python or Ruby, or for that matter C or C++, code is much more
portable.

Additionally, there's the question of what you want to do.  If you want
to learn *programming*, I think VB is considered a bad environment.

> There's a reason so many different languages continue to exist...

Sure.  All the more reason to make sure that when you learn, you learn
to *program*, not to be trapped by one language, one platform or one
implementation.

Your beginning language should therefore be something that opens your
horizons instead of restricting them.

I think the earlier poster who suggested going straight for Scheme may
have a point.  Not only is it the core language for working with
Lilypond, but it's a Lisp dialect, and Lisp is both the grandaddy of
programming and the most flexible language there is.  See for example,
http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html