Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 10:40:58 -0600 From: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: C++ Compiler On FreeBSD Message-ID: <20071006164058.GC61195@demeter.hydra> In-Reply-To: <bef9a7920710061707g53726e8aqe76a2d47444864a5@mail.gmail.com> References: <972994690710061253q483e26ber68f4716d3202d1fa@mail.gmail.com> <20071006201356.GB55336@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <972994690710061329t10b4eb49j8c95a539eec2bbe9@mail.gmail.com> <slrnfgg8cv.2n34.apeiron%2Busenet@prophecy.velum> <bef9a7920710061707g53726e8aqe76a2d47444864a5@mail.gmail.com>
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On Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 12:07:59AM +0000, Aryeh Friedman wrote: > > PHP isn't really a programming language. It's more a fancy templating > > system that happens to be able to use extensions that can provide C > > style linkage. That said, I laude you for your desire to learn a real > > programming language, and agree with the recommendation that you start > > with something a bit higher level. Perl, for example, ships with > > absolutely top-notch documentation, and generally speaking, its > > third-party extensions have similar documentation quality. > > Ruby is *VERY* easy to learn and there are many online and offline > books for teaching it (or depending on your personal ideals on > bittorrent)... it has one advantage over perl it much less > syntactically ugly Perl gets a lot of bad press for its syntax. It's mostly undeserved, however. I think the two things about Perl that contribute most to that reputation are: 1. sigils on variables (there's a widespread unreasoning hatred of this language characteristic in some circles) 2. the fact that OOP in Perl actually *is* very ugly -- even if the rest of the language isn't As Paul Graham has been known to say (even if he wasn't talking about Perl specifically, at the time), real ugliness isn't harsh-looking syntax; it's having to build programs using the wrong concepts. Perl's full of ways to use the *right* concepts, as long as you don't misuse it like most of the code at Matt's Script Archive does. That's a not-so-subtle hint to avoid Matt's Script Archive if you're looking for examples of good Perl code. Perlmonks is much better for that. On the other hand, Aryeh Friedman is right that Ruby is very easy to learn, and it too is an excellent language. It's also much better (in my opinion at least) for learning object oriented programming techniques than Perl. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Brian K. Reid: "In computer science, we stand on each other's feet."
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