[Tutor] Which programming language is better to start with

[Remco Gerlich]

On  0, James M Lang <jimmy_130@lycos.com> wrote:
> On one weeb site that I went to, it said that it was better to start with
> Python or Perl. It stated that Python was more easier and Perl was more
> useful. I have tried Python but, where I live, resources are very limited
> and I couln't find much to help learn Python. They did have a few Perl books
> at the library. The reason for which I started to learn to program was to
> program videogames for fun. Any ideas about what to do?

Well, you ask here, the list for people who try to use Python to learn how
to program. Obviously I believe that Python is the best way to learn
programming, period.

I don't think you absolutely need books, if you have a good Internet
connection - go through one or a few tutorials for non-programmers (there
are links under Documentation at www.python.org), you can ask questions
here, the library reference is a very important resource and it is online,
etc.

For games, there is PyGame - www.pygame.org . Nice for developing games
using Python, and you can use the existing games as examples.

However, it's not *easy*. Learning to program enough to make a video game is
hard work, no matter what the language. In the end, your game will probably
want to use more than one language, like Python with parts done in C. But,
as the examples at pygame.org show, you can get quite far, in fact to a nice
working real game, with only Python.

And Python was, in part, *designed* to be used by newbie programmers. Perl
was designed for people who think strings of unix commands and regexes are
similar to a natural language - the opposite end of the spectrum.

And, Python is *FUN*. If you're going to do hard work and study a lot, this
is easily one of the most important things :-)

-- 
Remco Gerlich