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What to do after Python?

Cees de Groot cg at gaia.intranet.cdegroot.com
Sun Feb 18 13:53:18 EST 2001 
Jim Eaton  <eatonalive at qwestinternet.net> said:
>I am learning Python as a first language, and I have been wondering what
>is a good language to learn after Python?  I'm thinking of either going
>into C or Java but I'm not sure which one because I've heard many
>arguments either way.  Will going into Java first be any detriment to
>learning C later?  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
You should learn at least a new programming language per year to keep
your mind fresh, so it doesn't really matter. 

Python is nice for a general view of programming: it does OO, procedural
and functional programming reasonably well. I'd advise C as a second
language because it forces you to deal with the computer behind all 
that code, which tends to give you a good perspective for other
language. Smalltalk is probably the best general language around if
you think OO is cool - watch out, lot of people never want anything
else after learning it. I'd sniff at Haskell and/or Scheme as well,
but you probably want to do quite a bit of programming and reading
before these languages start to make sense, and even then... 

If you want a job, decide whether you are pro or contra M$ and sign
up for a VB or Java course depending on the outcome. Needless to say
that these languages won't teach you a lot of new stuff compared to
the ones I mentioned above. You probably shouldn't take them as second
language because they are likely to teach you a lot of bad habits.



-- 
Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg at cdegroot.com>
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