Re: question?

[will trillich <will@serensoft.com>]

On Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 03:31:26AM -0500, Wayne Sitton wrote:
> I don't want to start a flame war, BUT....

too late...

> I've been working with Uinx since I was 12, now I'm 28.  I've been a linux

if you've been using unix for over half your lifetime, more than
a decade and a half, then surely you've encountered the need for
a shell script...

> fan for about 3 years.  I started with red hat, but when a friend told
> debian was tthe one, I started using it.  and quickly learned the advantages
> of Debian.  I feel i'm adaquet as a user.  So , what is my next step?  I
> thought it would be learning some programing.  my problem is, there are so
> many languages out there.  I tried to start with C, but couldn't get through
> the book. I started a project that used php and have become pretty good at
> it.
> My question is what programming language is best to learn??????

bash, csh, zsh -- they all have programming constructs:
variables, if-then-else, while, etc...

nobody's mentioned basic, which is a good thing. unless you have
a commodore, stay away from basic.

perl is the 800-pound gorilla of the web, 'cuz it can do just
about anything. and a clever perl hacker can take clean code and
turn it into bizarre looking line noise, as others have said.
(and of course a good coder can take perl line noise and produce
readable code that works almost as well, by the same token.)

python can do just about everything perl can, and its code tends
to be cleaner, thanks to the indentation paradigm.

c is the natural language of the *nix universe. it's compiled, so
it's a bit more combersome to get into than an interactive script
langauge like bash or perl or python -- but as it's compiled, it
tends to outperform an interpreted langauge. (note than efficient
interpreted scripts can outperform sloppy compiled programs. it
depends on the algorithms implemented and the clarity of thought
behind it.)

if anybody mentions cobol, aim for the temple and keep firing
until there's no more blood spatter.

-- 
DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #6 from Will Trillich <will@serensoft.com> 
:
How do you keep text from SCROLLING BY TOO DAMN FAST? :)
Before pressing the ENTER key of a command that you know will
generate a lot of output, "pipe" it through your pager:
	ls -lR | pager
	locate tgz | pager
	grep -r pattern /home | pager
You can also try <SHIFT>-<PAGE-UP> to scroll back. This works
both at the console and in rxvt/xterm windows.

Also see http://newbieDoc.sourceForge.net/ ...