"Simple" Languages in FreeBSD

[Brandon J. Wandersee]

Allen writes:

> I have the book "Learning Perl" that I bought a while back, and I've
> also downloaded a bunch of stuff for Perl, Python, Ruby, and others, so
> I'm just curious on basically what Languages anyone here would
> recommend.

I'll echo what some others have said, and recommend that before you
learn any language you should learn about the fundamentals and different
paradigms of programming itself: variables, loops, branches, and all
that. Most programming language tutorials I've seen assume the reader
already has a general understanding of how to string logic together when
writing a program.

Since *nix is your platform, and you're looking for something "simple,"
I'd have to recommend starting with Bourne shell scripting.[1] Every
Unix/Linux implementation uses shell scripts for common tasks, and shell
scripting will both teach you more about how Unix-like operating systems
work, and save you from being buried in the low-level, highly
abstracted, get-your-hands-really-dirty sorts of tasks other programming
languages are suited for. The Bourne shell (/bin/sh) is found on all
*nix platforms, and anything written in good old Bourne syntax can be
interpreted by any other shell (Bash, ZSH, (T)CSH, Kourne...), so it
serves as a good starting point for learning how to write scripts for
your shell of choice, and your scripts will work anywhere a Unix shell
is available. And since many things in FreeBSD---including all the rc(8)
and periodic(8) scripts---are written in Bourne shell, learning that
will give you insight into how FreeBSD does some things under the hood,
and possibly let you change some of your system's behavior with relative
ease and without having to hack the operating system itself.

The tutorials at Codecademy can also be a fun way to learn a bit while
passing the time.[2] I'm a perpetual novice myself when it comes to
programming, so that sort of thing appeals to me.

[1]: http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sh.html
[2]: https://www.codecademy.com/

-- 

::  Brandon J. Wandersee
::  brandon.wandersee at gmail.com
::  --------------------------------------------------
::  'The best design is as little design as possible.'
::  --- Dieter Rams ----------------------------------