New programming lang to jump into.

[GnuVince]

OK, here's uniq in Python. The reason I couldn't find how to do it, is that I kindda didn't remember it was legal to modify the value of a variable (to reassign) in Python. So here goes:

def uniq(list):
  uniq_l = []
  for elt in list:
    if not elt in uniq_l:
      uniq_l.append(elt)
  return(uniq_l)

[Schotty]

I must say this, when I first got into programming I had BASIC 2.0 and assemble to choose from. Later a C compiler became available. Now I have C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, O'Caml, COBOL (I actually got a few uses on this one), and Lisp. Plus add inot the blend the fact that I have countless number of developers' libraries to deal with (Qt, GTK, wxWindows, to name the biggies) I can say that no matter what, I will always be forced to learn more to be the most resourceful ! Howe times have changed!

I am liking Ruby sofar. I have found that it will be interesting to see how I can tie my MySQL DB to create a frontend/app out of it. Shall be interesting One of these nights I will start doing little apps, to see how fast I can really learn it. I expect it to be about a month before I become mildly proficient.

[GnuVince]

Ruby and Python take one afternoon to learn. To get pretty good with them, you got to use them for about 2 weeks.

[Schotty]

Ruby seemed to be pretty quick to pick up on. But do remember that I have coded jack shit as of the last few years. I had maybe a handful of projects that actually made me think. Skills in programming dwindle fast when unused.

But I do see where you are coming from. Seems very simple and straightforward.

[Ashcrow]

[quote author=sans link=board=9;threadid=4304;start=0#42747 date=1027533956]
If you want a cross platform toolkit that's free on all platforms (Qt is only free for X11, i.e. Unix and its clones), check out wxWindows. It's a rather nice toolkit that uses the native widget sets for each platform it's ported to. Qt only emulates native widgets. It does not actually use them.
[/quote]

There is a speed downside to wxWindows being that it uses virtual methods and sits on top of native widgets making a call to a widget really a call through a widget to a widget. wxWindows is nice though.

[kenshi]

What? No assembler? Java is a good language to learn. Not only is it very portable and used across the web, but you can also easily make text and graphic applications with it. I do dislike the fact that it's interpreted rather than compiled, but its advantages outweigh that. C and C++ are also good. Again, they're portable and very powerful. I'm sure most of the languages mentioned above are good, but for your first language (in a few years at least), I would go with something commonly used and portable.

[GnuVince]

Yo kenshi, by default Java is byte-compiled and you can use jit to compile to native-code (but this removes the portability). Also, Python is as much portable as Java.

[kenshi]

Awesome. I'll have to check out jit.

But while Python may be cross-platform, the interpreter/compiler isn't found on a lot of computers. Java is supported by practically any computer with a browser (meaning practically any computer). Python's not really up there. I have looked at Python and think it's a good language, but I just prefer to know at least one basically universal language.

[GnuVince]

It's more common to find a browser that supports CGI than a browser that supports Java in my experience. Plus, for Java programs to work, you need the Java Virtual Machine, so it's not too different from having the Python interpreter.

[kenshi]

Yeah, I said somewhere I hate having to use the Java Virtual Machine. But now that you mention jit, maybe I won't have to.