Good Starter Language? (was Re: REALBasic and OpenAL)

[Jason Clinton]

On Thu, 2005-03-31 at 11:39 -0800, Leo Mauler wrote:
> If not BASIC, then what would be the programming
> language of choice for the beginner?
> 
> Ideas accepted from all.

One of the two popular object oriented, interpreted scripting languages:
Python or Ruby.

Python is nice and clean but not always internally consistent -- lots of
docs are available though; Ruby is amazingly internally consistent to
the point that some really beautiful behavior can emerge from simple
syntax.

You should start with a scripting language because of the ease with
which variable typing is handled and the simplicity of getting the thing
you write to run (no compiling and linking). Stay away from Perl because
its more complex behavior like OOP is visually an after-thought.

If you were looking to go hardcore, start with the Smalltalk-80
implementation called Squeak or even crazier, start with LISP.

If you want to try the new kid on the block, download and play with Mono
but good luck finding a non-Windows introduction to C#.

Do not start with Java, C++, C, etc. You'll just get frustrated by "here
are the rules but here is a massive list of exceptions to them." We
don't want you to run away from programming because of these
idiosyncrasies.

Obviously, though, you'll eventually need to look at one of the
languages used in common practice: Java or C. 


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