Sun Feb 21 21:50:14 MST 2010

I'd just like to point out that ruby was originally intended to be a
replacement for perl, primarily focused on being used for sys admin
type scripting, not a web language.  I for one love ruby and do
essentially no web programming, I just can't live without the binding
operator ( ~= ) and perl's regular expressions, but love ruby's syntax
( and who wouldn't love something like '5.times { puts "Ruby is the
greatest!" }

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Joshua Zeidner <jjzeidner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Michael Havens <bmike1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> website development seems like the only thing I would want to do so Ruby it
>> is!
>
>
>   and that is the typical story with Ruby developers...  ;)
>
>  -jmz
>
>
>> Unfortunately, it isn't on my Ubuntuu install. When  I tried to start it
>> it told me to apt-get it. No internet connection.
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 7:12 PM, Joseph Sinclair <plug-discussion at stcaz.net>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Let's not devolve into a favorite language war.  There are situations
>>> where Python is a great language choice, and situations where it's terrible.
>>> Every language choice comes down to what you want to accomplish.
>>>  Some languages are good for rapid development of websites (Ruby, PHP,
>>> etc...).
>>>  Some languages are good for systems management scripts (Python, Perl,
>>> etc...).
>>>  Some languages are good for developing large web systems intended to be
>>> maintained for years (Java, others).
>>>  Some languages are good for developing packaged COTS software (C++, Java,
>>> etc...).
>>>  Some languages are good for system software and embedded devices (C, C++,
>>> etc...).
>>>  Many languages are most useful in very specific niches (Forth, Lisp, ADA,
>>> XSLT, LOLCode, Objective-C, etc...)
>>>
>>> Most languages have multiple areas where they work well, and multiple
>>> areas where they're not so good.
>>> What exactly you want to accomplish in your software development should
>>> drive the language choice, although it rarely does.
>>>
>>> No one particular language is the best choice for learning how to write
>>> software; each type of software development will drive a different choice of
>>> the best "first" language to learn.
>>>
>>> Mike, you need to specify your goal more precisely in order for the
>>> community here to give you a useful recommendation that will help you best
>>> accomplish that goal.
>>>
>>> ==Joseph++
>>>
>>> Kevin Fries wrote:
>>> > Wow, now I know why it is so hard to hire people that are competent!
>>> >  Python is fun, not right, but fun... Thats your argument?  If you want to
>>> > know why we refuse to hire Python programmers at our company, I can give you
>>> > real facts on why you should not use that language as a place to learn...
>>> > Not opinions.
>>> >
>>> > Kevin
>>> >
>>> > Sent from my Nokia phone
>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>> > From: Joshua Zeidner
>>> > Sent:  02/20/2010 4:17:23 PM
>>> > Subject:  Re:
>>> >
>>> > On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Joshua Zeidner <jjzeidner at gmail.com>
>>> > wrote:
>>> >>  Seems like we have a lot of opinions here.  Here is a paper from ACM
>>> >> on the use of Python in for teaching programming.
>>> >>
>>> >>    http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=114017
>>> >
>>> >   sorry wrong link:
>>> >  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1140123.1140177
>>> >
>>> >        -jmz
>>> >
>>> >>  -jmz
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 4:01 PM, Austin William Wright
>>> >> <diamondmagic at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>>> >>> Alan Dayley wrote:
>>> >>>> Python.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>> Absolutely NOT PYTHON. It breaks the first two rules of programming,
>>> >>> the
>>> >>> assignment operator (=) assigns values to a variable, and always
>>> >>> ignore
>>> >>> whitespace. Well my first two rules, at least. Plus it sucks at
>>> >>> consistent use of object-oriented programming.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> If you *really* need a general-purpose programming language, look at
>>> >>> Ruby, it's slightly more well behaved. Slightly. I would recommend
>>> >>> Javascript, it's a major programming language, and you can run it in
>>> >>> your web browser with literally nothing to install. Plus Javascript is
>>> >>> closely related to XML and HTML, while not programming languages, are
>>> >>> markup languages (a way of storing data) that is becoming very
>>> >>> important
>>> >>> to know for many things. Though designed for the web, many of these
>>> >>> things are finding themselves become part of everyday computing,
>>> >>> especially XML. For these things, http://www.w3schools.com/ is
>>> >>> popular.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Any scripting language might be a good start at learning about
>>> >>> if/then/else logic, but none of these languages are going to teach how
>>> >>> computers really *process* or *store* information on the inside (how
>>> >>> the
>>> >>> CPU executes the program or how variables are stored in memory), or
>>> >>> for
>>> >>> that matter write an actual interactive computer program, you will
>>> >>> need
>>> >>> a real language like C or C++. After learning something like
>>> >>> Javascript
>>> >>> you will find C surprisingly limited in functionality if you try and
>>> >>> do
>>> >>> things the same way, especially variable-length variables like strings
>>> >>> and arrays. Keep that fact in the back of your head for when, if, you
>>> >>> attempt C/C++.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Whatever you do, Google "<x> tutorial" should bring up something good.
>>> >>> In the way of books, however, you can't miss ones from O'Reilly (
>>> >>> http://oreilly.com/ ), they are jade/teal and have a random animal on
>>> >>> the cover.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Austin Wright.
>>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>> >>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
>>> >>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>>> >>> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>> >>>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >> http://home.joshuazeidner.com/
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
>>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>>> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------
>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>
>
>
>
> --
> http://home.joshuazeidner.com/
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>