From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Fri Jul 1 09:15:15 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4F8FB885E2 for ; Fri, 1 Jul 2016 09:15:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from steve@sohara.org) Received: from smtp3.irishbroadband.ie (smtp3.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.5]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7259A25EF for ; Fri, 1 Jul 2016 09:15:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from steve@sohara.org) Received: from [89.127.62.20] (helo=smtp.lan.sohara.org) by smtp3.irishbroadband.ie with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1bIuFo-0006XL-Kn for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Fri, 01 Jul 2016 09:56:52 +0100 Received: from [192.168.63.1] (helo=steve.lan.sohara.org) by smtp.lan.sohara.org with smtp (Exim 4.86_2 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1bIuG1-0009dz-T8 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Fri, 01 Jul 2016 08:57:05 +0000 Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 09:56:52 +0100 From: Steve O'Hara-Smith To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: "Simple" Languages in FreeBSD Message-Id: <20160701095652.17036e6fe1e467ee64adc9f7@sohara.org> In-Reply-To: <20160630175243.063e07a7@KoggyBSD.org> References: <20160630175243.063e07a7@KoggyBSD.org> X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.5.0 (GTK+ 2.24.29; amd64-portbld-freebsd10.1) X-Clacks-Overhead: "GNU Terry Pratchett" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.22 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2016 09:15:15 -0000 On Thu, 30 Jun 2016 17:52:43 -0400 Allen wrote: > Anyway, in all these years that have passed using FreeBSD and a bunch > of Linux distros, I never had time or patience enough to learn > Programming Languages, and I'm getting more and more to the part where > I'm thinking it's a good idea more so now than before. First off FreeBSD supports most programming languages from BASIC to Prolog by way of C, Smalltalk, LISP, Haskell and Forth among many others. Here's the thing - each of the languages I've listed is an example of a particular programming paradigm (there are many other examples of each paradigm). If your aim is to learn about programming in general then I would advise learning as many different paradigms as possible. If your aim is to do a bit of programming then pick a language - any language - and learn to write something useful. Python and Perl are both easy to learn OO/structured languages, python attempts to force good style, perl is more of an anything goes approach. Learn one and the other is easy to learn. -- Steve O'Hara-Smith