From: vanek@...
Date: 2005-07-19T11:05:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby/Rails as a starter language?

If you don't need to get involved in web programming right away, gawk
is probably the easiest and gives you a big bang for the buck, to mix
metaphors. Ruby is a breath of fresh air but you will have a hard time
appreciating many of the more powerful aspects of the language as a
newbie. Heck, many programmers even have a hard time wrapping their
brains around object-oriented programming. First crawl, then walk, then
run. (If you see the word 'pointer' in the language you are studying
you will want to avoid that language for at least a year. Pointers are
dangerous for newbies, and thankfully all popular scripting languages
shield you from 'em.) The easiest languages to learn are the
garbage-collected scripting languages such as PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby,
and Gawk. PHP is an excellant learning language---better than Java,
IMNSHO. Just don't stay in that rut for long. BTW, if you decide to go
with Awk/Gawk, one of the best books is called "The Awk Programming
Language," by Aho.
Oh, to be young again...