[Kevin Fries]

For learning, I actually prefer Ruby, it should be included in you Ubuntu also.  Its a much purer form of object orientation, and therefore much more consistent.  This consistency IMHO makes the language easier to learn for a novice since you will spend less time fighting inconsistencies in the language.  I would also recomend NetBeans, also in the Ubuntu Repositories as a programming IDE, it has full support for many languages such as Ruby and Python.

Python is a much more popular language, but has some design quirks that may confuse a novice when trying to move to a stronger language like Ruby, Java, and C++.  While I would not recommend Python as your first language, once you have properly learned OOP, you can move to a language like Python that is not fully OOP (no polymophism, no protected and private methods, no data hiding, poor class integrity, etc).  Python's failure to hold onto strict OO principles provide many advantages, just not to someone learning their first language.

Good Luck with learning to program, it can be quite rewarding.

Kevin

Sent from my Nokia phone
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Dayley
Sent:  02/20/2010 3:14:46 PM
Subject:  Re:

Python.

python.org

"Python for Software Design: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist"
http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/

Go!

Alan

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Michael Havens <bmike1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I want to learn to program. What is a good first language to learn?  Could
> someone give me a place to d/l this language that also has instructional
> material?
>
> Another question I have is: my linux box is not connected to the web; is all
> I have to do is d/l the *nix version, save it to my flash, and move it over
> to the ubuntu I have
>
> --
> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>
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