Learning OOP...

[Martijn Faassen]

Rod Weston <rod_weston at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Trying to decide which language to learn first.  I have programming
> experience in PICKBASIC and now want to learn OOP.At this point, I am
> leaning toward learning Ada and then Python.  Any ideas on why I
> should or should not use these languages in this sequence?

Why do you want to learn these languages? What problems are you looking
to solve and why do you think those languages would be most suitable?

If your interest is mostly to learn more about programming (among
other things OO), then you may be best starting out with Python.
Python is probably an easier language for beginners than Ada is. I would
also think Python's support for OO is better than Ada's. Python's
dynamicity may make you familiar with OO concepts faster than a statically
typed language like Ada could,  as it leaves more room to experiment and
you need to spend less time working to please the language in order to
do what you want to do.

That said, Ada will also help you learn some new concepts (like static
typing, for one. I don't know if PICKBASIC has such a thing). I'm not
overly familiar with Ada except the broad classication the language
fits in, so I can't help you more there.

Good luck,

Martijn
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