[Tutor] What language should I learn after Python?

[Jeff Johnson]

Marc Tompkins wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Mark Young <marky1991 at gmail.com 
> <mailto: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.
> 
> 
> May I suggest (some dialect of) SQL?  It _is_ quite different from 
> Python, but learning it will familiarise you with some concepts that 
> will be very useful if you want to use your Python skillz in a 
> data-driven application.  It's true that you can use Python modules to 
> interface with databases, and maybe never write more than a line or two 
> of real SQL - but those modules are a lot easier to understand if you 
> know what they're doing under the hood.
> 
> -- 
> www.fsrtechnologies.com <http://www.fsrtechnologies.com>

I like this suggestion.  A language is fairly useless without some work 
to do and for me personally, all of my applications access databases.  I 
have been programming since 1970 and I have used many languages in my 
work.  After you learn a few you notice the similarities and can pick up 
a new language quicker.  Most of the languages suggested use SQL in some 
form or fashion.  So I would recommend installing PostgreSQL and 
learning to work with it using the Python you already know.  I recommend 
PostgreSQL because of the cost (free), licensing, and ease of use.

One other thing that is important to me is packaging an application for 
distribution and updating existing applications.  That "language" would 
be Inno Setup.

HTH

FWIW, Python is my favorite language to use for too many reasons to list 
here!

-- 
Jeff

Jeff Johnson
jeff at dcsoftware.com
Phoenix Python User Group - sunpiggies at googlegroups.com