From: Crep Cat <nospam@...>
Date: 2007-05-29T05:55:03+09:00
Subject: Trying to decide on a language to learn

I am trying to decide on a language to learn - and would be grateful for 
help.
My reasons for wanting to learn programming are firstly to have fun
and secondly to learn more about how computers work.

I have thought of one thing I would like to write - and wonder if Ruby
(or perhaps Python?) would be suitable.

I would like to export a spreadsheet column to a file;
read that file into Ruby as an array;
mess about with that array;
write the new array out as a file;
import that file into a spreadsheet.

I can't understand the documentation about file handling.
Ruby documentation starts off very user friendly,
but, by the time it gets to file handling, has become extremely 
esoteric!

Anyway, would Ruby be a good language for that task?
Would any other language be more suitable?
Could I get newbie help on file handling here?
Is there a really good introductory book which deals simply with file 
handling?