[Tutor] What language should I learn after Python?

[Luke Paireepinart]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 9:39 PM, Mark Young <marky1991 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm now fairly familiar with Python, so I'm thinking about starting to
> learn a second programming language. The problem is, I don't know which to
> learn. I want a language that will be good for me to learn, but is not so
> different from python that I will be totally confused. I tried learning C++
> and it was a massive failure, so I definitely think I'd like to stay closer
> to a high-level language. I know that this is a subjective question, but I'd
> still like to hear some suggestions if anyone has any.
>
> Also, I wasn't really sure if it was okay to ask this on tutor, if it's the
> wrong place, I'm sorry.
>

We generally don't mind questions regarding other programming languages.
 It's really important for professionals to have multiple languages in their
background, and it helps hobbyists too.

What sorts of things do you want to write?  If you're interested in web
development, Ruby may be a good choice.  Perl and PHP are common as well,
but (IMHO) have some quirks and design issues that always frustrate me.

Depending on your requirements, you may not even need to learn another
language, but it's definitely helpful if you do want to do it anyway.  You
may want to look at Java, although I personally do not like Java very much.
 I think the most useful second language would probably be C++, because you
can extend Python with it, and cover Python's only real weakness, the
interpreter speed.  But if you can't seem to wrap your head around it,
that's understandable.  It's not a very user-friendly language.  Have you
tried learning C?  That might be easier for you to pick up.

Anyway, you really need to learn a language that you can use for something
you want to accomplish, otherwise there will be no point in learning the
language other than learning it, and you really have to write code to get
familiar with a language (not just its syntax), so it would help if it were
something you wanted to do.
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