[Tutor] newbie Questions

[Joel Goldstick]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 9:54 AM, Wayne Werner <wayne at waynewerner.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2012, Walter Prins wrote:
>
>> Hi again Matthew,
>>
>> I forgot to include the following link which I originally thought to
>> include, which is one guy's set of (IMHO very cogent) criticisms
>> against PHP as programming language:  http://is.gd/z1POXC  Hopefully
>> it gives you something else to think about regarding the PHP vs Python
>> question apart from just whether doing websites in it is "easy".
>>
>
> I read that article recently and recommend it as well. I used to
> think that PHP was just fine... but since reading that article (and several
> related ones), I've since revised my opinion.
>
> I would now tell someone to learn any language besides php.
>
My take on this depends upon the background (and goal) of the new
learner.  In this list, and among people who care about professional
software development I'm sure python would win the question.  But for
someone with a passing curiosity about 'what is programming?', and
'can I make my own website?', he might be better served to learn a
little php coding (along with html and maybe css).  I say this
because, although python is really straightforward to learn as a first
language, or as a language to learn in order to understand computer
science concepts, I think it has a higher barrier to entry than
cobbling together some php and html in a text editor and copying it
into a directory that lets apache serve up php to a web browser.  This
might spur the learner to dig deeper. And that is where python will
prove a better fit.
-- 
Joel Goldstick