What to do after Python?

[Alex Martelli]

"Michael Hudson" <mwh21 at cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:m3ae7ke0v7.fsf at atrus.jesus.cam.ac.uk...
> Jim Eaton <eatonalive%qwestinternet.net at pop3.qwestinternet.net> writes:
>
> > I am learning Python as a first language, and I have been wondering
> > what is a good language to learn after Python?  I'm thinking of
> > either going into C or Java but I'm not sure which one because I've
> > heard many arguments either way.  Will going into Java first be any
> > detriment to learning C later?  Any suggestions would be greatly
> > appreciated.
>
> Depends what you want to do, obviously.  If you're after a job, then
> C, C++, Java are good choices.  If you want to broaden your mind, try
> scheme or Common Lisp or Haskell or some variant of ML or Smalltalk...

Perfectly correct (though I would not put things in this specific order:-),
but I just want to underline my original suggestion in this light: SQL
does _both_ -- it broadens the mind, being a non-procedural, set
oriented language, *AND* is also a good choice in terms of practical
use and on-the-job usefulness (most programmers use relational DB's,
very few use them _really well_...:-).  My second suggestion, for some
structured-markup language such as XML (with XPath, XLink, XSLT...)
is much in the same vein, although more debatable.


Alex