[CentOS] OT: programming language for morons (newbie friendly language in Open Source world)

Mon Dec 13 21:49:54 UTC 2010
Warren Young <warren at etr-usa.com>

On 12/13/2010 9:37 AM, Les Mikesell wrote:
> On 12/13/2010 10:14 AM, Sven Aluoor wrote:
>> A friend said that C-Sharp (Mono) is very simple. Is this true?

I doubt you'll find it any less complex than Java.  The two are very 
similar, conceptually.  C# exists more for political and business 
reasons than technical ones; it fills the same space Java could fill, in 
a platform-agnostic world.

Another poster mentioned a documentation advantage, but I imagine a lot 
of that advantage is eroded by being Windows and Microsoft centric.  In 
any case, I don't think the documentation advantage is enough to solve 
the core problem you likely had with Java, which C# shares, that being 
its relative verbosity and strictness.

Your next step should be to something simpler, and with less of a 
difference to your existing experience.

> Perl is probably the easiest next step for someone who has shell
> scripting experience.

Seconded.

I frequently translate shell scripts to Perl when I run into one of the 
many limitations of shell scripting.  Even when I've managed to build 
something in shell hundreds of lines long before I run into one of these 
walls, the process is always quick.

I say this as someone who has written substantial programs in a dozen 
different programming languages, and sampled probably a dozen more. 
Perl is your best next step.

Don't be distracted by the Perl 6 noise.  Perl 6 has been "coming" for a 
decade now, and although it's finally in something like a generally 
useful state now, it's still not as useful as Perl 5 is today.  Leave 
Perl 6 to the early adopters, and don't worry that you aren't using the 
newest cool-guy version yet.  You aren't yet late enough to the party to 
get plenty of use out of Perl 5 before you have to worry about being 
forced to move to Perl 6; that won't happen for years yet.