From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata Date: 2002-08-27T01:00:01+09:00 Subject: Re: What New Language After Ruby? Hi, Thanks for responding to my query. Do you mean "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Abelson and Sussman? It is interesting if they actually use Scheme. I agree with the Pragmatic Programmer regarding the learning; however, I want something that is new and can be put into real practice at the same time. Regarding learning itself, someone referred me languages such as Icon (which is a language without statements, only expressions) and Forth (which is a language without syntax), whose descriptions amaze me already. I guess drawing the boundaries between educational and practical is indeed difficult and highly subjective. To me, C extension is really important, because if I turn out to like the new language a lot (like Ruby), I can really write a "real-life" code in it. Someone already gave me a comment of why not learning advanced C; for my purpose it is already a diminishing return. A language like Ruby, on the other hand, makes writing a network simulator much easier. And because network simulation takes so much computations, usually it is done in C/C++ or even Java. Now I am wondering whether by learning one of the candidate languages, it will give me another dimension/angle in writing the network simulator, just as Ruby did. (Actually not just Ruby, but also Tcl, Perl, and Python; but so far Ruby gives the most natural object model.) I haven't dropped Haskell yet; in one of the responses someone gave an example of how to write interface between Haskell and C. I guess it is time for me to do the deeper research myself. Thanks. Regards, Bill ============================================================================ Nat Pryce wrote: > I have not used any of these languages in combination with C, so I > cannot say. > In my opinion, if you want to learn a new language to extend your > understanding of programming itself, as the aim of the Pragmatic > Programmer's LoTY project seems to be, then Haskell is the most > interesting language because it is as far away from most mainstream > languages as a functional language can get. > On the other hand, if you just want to learn a practical language that > you can easily extend in C, and are not really interested in learning a > new programming style, why bother with any of the above? You might as > well stick with Ruby, since it supports some functional programming > styles as well as imperative OO programming. > If you want a bit of both, then buy a copy of "The Structure And > Interpretation of Computer Languages" (aka "The Wizard Book"), get a > Scheme interpreter and go through the book from beginning to end, > running all the examples and exercises along the way. IMHO, The Wizard > Book is the best book written about programming, but it's pretty > challenging.