What language should I learn?

What single programming language should I learn that is most flexible? It's needs are to form the basis for MacOSX Cocoa applications, Linux command-line programs (and preferably least X11). This I ask here, for scientists likely lurk here, but don't always program in Objective C. (Though I've heard nothing but good things about it!)
Currently, I use a variant of APL to assist as I work. When simplifying my life, around 1980, I changed to one editor: the platform-independent emacs. Now I should like to do the same with a 'general' programming language.
Science is free, and scientists (I might suppose) support Richard Stallman's philosophy. Scientific source code needs be freely offered, written in an ISO standard language, and capable of being made platform-independent. It must easily be modified to use scientific libraries (lapack & netlib's others) and write linux, command-line programs, distributed by way of Sourceforge.
I've been separated from other scientists for a long time. Is there a language satisfying the above scientific requirements that can also write 'modular' object-oriented applications for MacOSX, using the Aqua interface? If there are no caveats to using 'Java' for this purpose, I'll invest time in that. Have scientists or others faced this question?
Thanks,
Bruce
PS. This question arose while searching for a simple little program to change images into icons:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7511505#7511505
Here's the continuation of that post, that illustrates the problem, likely faced my many:
Indeed, ... I could always use GraphicConverter.
This topic begs the question of why we use GraphicConverter or PhotoShop to change a single color in an image. That's wasn't always supposed to be the case.
Unix's credo: do only one thing, but do it well, and the popularity of Lotus 1-2-3, decades ago caused a great idea to emerge and gradually grow, until it became alive in developers' minds. Then it suffered a quick death, from unknown causes.
Modular Software
One day, a housewife becoming tired of spending a year learning and 'tuning' huge word processors to write a quick note saying she had gone to the corner market and would be back soon. The concept of modular software emerged: one would buy essentially, a text editor, then buy only those extra little modules you needed for your particular use: editing frills (as in emacs), formatting, adding images, importing & exporting formats, &c: 'personal' software. This needed a modular language; and, as it happened, C++ emerged soon. What ever happened to this idea (or the idea of using sounds for messages in addition to alarms, as in Growl), I never understood.
Simple Software
Many 'Google Images' have a white borders. It would be a clever idea to make background colors 'pure' (not in need of dithering when converted to a raster image). In the latter case, every GIF image could be dropped on an icon that could convert the lower-righthand pixel (the background) to a 'transparent' color. An old GIF image taken from the web could lose its background, and be ready to paste to the tiny icon in and 'Info Window'.
Simple Modules
Ah, but what about a Shft-Cmd-4 copy from my desktop? Mine are in JPEG format. I need to convert it to GIF. I could add a conversion module to the original little program (which could even convert to PNG). Ah, but the color of my Desktop varies or is, at least, not an 8-bit color (thank God). Then I could add a module that 'de-dithers' the color.
Relation to Unix
In old Unix these would be filters, something like this:
cat image | ddthr | rfmt -png > icon
Now I find myself using PhotoShop or GraphicConverter for finding & changing one color in an image. I'm still looking, and now becoming inclined to start programming again (which was always a mistake in the past).
Problems with Programming
Programming, I've avoided for two reasons: (1) two decades ago, I realized I had learned nearly a dozen text editors until I decided to use solely the platform-independent 'emacs'; and (2) I discovered it took me well over 6 months to master any programming language (more for a word processor), yet less than 6 weeks to forget it completely. (In the distant past, it was wise to choose one's language to match the project.)
Macs
However, I switched from Unix to Mac so I wouldn't have to think about computing any longer. Macs had always been built for such people as I, they are beautiful, and they can maintain themselves (or, a networked one can be set-up to do so).
APL
My preferred language is the APL variant 'J', which I use daily to test hypotheses, as I think about my research. Such a language, by the way, is great for pre-school children who can't read words yet. (Whether they'll ever be able to punctuate English correctly is another matter.)
http://www.jsoftware.com
Need for another Language
However, I need eventually to convert my scientific algorithms to run in a Linux shell, using Linux's operators (such as 'filter' or 'tee') to combine the little modules.
I'm now considering (re-)learning the platform-independent 'Java' language, and developing applications on Sourceforge. This way, scientific (ie. free) calculations could be integrated into online scientific papers and placed on other websites as well.

Kappy,
Sorry, I thought the question would be a common one confronting casual programmers. With such a variety of popular languages, there is likely no simple answer. I rescind the question with an apology and shall investigate my own problem myself. Sorry.
The question was, being tired of using the wrong but kindly written MacOSX applications, is there a programming language I can learn now that will also serve me in the future?
1. Now I need to write, for example, the program described to process photographic images, whose structures are arrays of arrays. Is there a language with such structures less bloated than C++?
2. Old APL an object-orented language designed for quickly writing algorithms for exactly these structures (the common structures in engineering, science, and mathematics).
3. Is there an object-oriented language for such structures, also used to write MacOSX applications, that one can learn to correctly build applications in 6 months (rather than 6 years)? This means strong typing, static type checking, automatic memory management, &c. An 'interpreter' as well would be nice!
4. For science, it must be a high-level, very portable but standard language that can be compiled into (say) byte code for a standard virtual machine that is on all computers. For image processing on my own little Mac, it needs to be compiled all the way to Altvec-optimized machine code.
5. Is there now such a beast? One that can be hooked at a low level with libraries (written in C or C++), and hooked at a high level to an OOUI (Aqua, in particular)?
Sorry, I expected an engineer to say:-
'Sure, MacOSX's compiler is based on the GCC, which contains a compiler for Java. It hooks at many levels. We use it to send code to afilliates around the Globe; and even Windows users haven't complained.
'Several lexical analyzers have even been written (in C) for Java: so you can parse your spam as well!'
But I don't know the above to be true.
I was looking for reasons why Java might not be the better of the GCC languages for 'amateur programming'. I'm sorry I 'passed the buck', when I shouldn't have. This footwork I'll do myself after I can again install /Developer.
Things I expect to be common problems never are.
Thanks anyway.
Bruce

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What programming language should i learn first?

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What programming language should i learn?

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Python - Google use this for their help center thingy, and so do a lot of other projects. It requires you use indentation for formatting, however, so you can't make one-liners with this. It's HIGHLY structured, and from my perspective best for apps that need to be extended over time.
C++ - not much I can say for this one, except that it's like C, but OOP.
C - this is THE definitive, de facto UNIX language. If you ever write something remotely successful on a large scale that's small, fast and stable, it will almost likely be in C, and will most likely have taken a huge number of hours off of your hands before it was completed.
Assembly - this is more complex than C. I won't discourage you from having a look at the Wikipedia article on this, but don't worry if it takes you a long time to "get" it
Just my two cents.
-dav7
Last edited by dav7 (2008-10-16 19:15:28)

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Version:
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Hi there
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What should I learn next?

So I already know Python. I decided to learn Python because I heard it was a good language to start out with. I've got a good grasp of the language and have been making various scripts for my personal needs. I've become interested in other languages and have wondered what I should learn next. So should I learn another language or continue exercising my hacker skills with Python? I want to learn a wide variety of types of programming.

ArchArael wrote:Learning new programming languages is fun but I think it's better if you develop something.
Much more better would be some bug fixing or helping some existing projects.
You can always learn new languages when you need to and save your time for something more useful (girl friend, friends, books, games, music etc).
Learning programming languages just to learn keeps you from doing practice in programming.
Mastering something takes time and practice, as someone told you before.
I don't think so. Programming takes time and practice, sure, but it also takes reading code and reading about programming. You can't give a pen and paper to a kid and say "here, write me a book" and spect this kid will write a masterpiece if she hadn't read a lot before.
Learning a new language gives you insights of how programming works, even on different languages. Both you and I aren't native speakers of English, but learning it changed the way I see somethings in Portuguese and vice versa; I have a different understanding of English and Portuguese that I would have if I've learnt only one of them, I belive this applies to you, too. This also works with programming languages: the way I program in C was different before I grasped some Lisp, and it would probably be different if I hadn't learnt Python, and so on.
Back on-topic, I'd recommend learning C, so you can grasp some of the basics: pointers, memory allocation, structs and unions, etc. Later, I'd suggest you to learn a language that makes you think about programming in a different way: Lisp or Haskell. Shell script is also nice, but I'd only use it to "glue" things together, and I don't see a problem with learning it concurrently with another language.
Edit:
Edit: Forgot to add this,
http://www.e-booksdirectory.com/programming.php
now say goodbye to all your free time and go learn 6 or 7 languages.
Indeed, very good site. I like the Mathematics "folder", too.
Last edited by andre.ramaciotti (2009-07-29 14:28:59)

What book should I read to learn J2ee!!

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thanks,english is my second language,my native is
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After getting the Oracle Database10g OCP and LPI Linux Level1 certificates , I have finished (learn and practise) the following documents:
Concepts
Administrator's Guide
Backup and Recovery Basics
Backup and Recovery Advanced User's Guide
Data Guard Broker(10g and 11g)
Data Guard Concepts and Administration(10g and 11g)
Platform Guide for Microsoft Windows (32-Bit)
2 Day + Performance Tuning Guide
Administrator's Reference for UNIX-Based Operating Systems
Storege Administrator's Guide(11g)
PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference
What should I learn next? Which choice of the following is better?
Choice 1:
Go in deep for all previous documents and stop to learn additional documents.
Choice 2:
Enterprise Manager Advanced Configuration
Enterprise Manager Command Line Interface
Enterprise Manager Concepts
High Availability Best Practices
High Availability Overview
Choice 3:
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Secure Backup Installation Guide
Secure Backup Migration Guide
Secure Backup Reference
Choice 4:
2 Day + Real Application Clusters Guide
Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and
Deployment Guide
Choice 5:
Performance Tuning Guide
Security Guide
Choice6:
LPI Linux Level2

I think you can't 'learn' Pratical Oracle 8i, without putting into practice what you 'learned'. When I look at the questions you have asked so far, as far as I am concerned, you have understood the stuff you 'learned' only half, exactly because you have no practical experience. As far as I am concerned you can't 'learn' Oracle from books, this is exactly why OCP is useless. People who have OCP don't 'know' Oracle, they know the books.
There have been no fundamental changes in the database engine between Oracle 8i, 9i and 10g. In fact, the last big change of architecture was when Oracle released Oracle 6, and After Image Journalling was replaced by redologs.
That said more than 90 percent of Practical Oracle 8i is still valid. You won't find any fancy stuff about database control, but you can do without.
However, I would recommend against 'learning' anything in the same fashion you have done so far. Looking at the list of books you 'learned' your understanding simply must be very superficial. Essentially you are now swimming in a pool without water, and you didn't even get your toes wet.
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Sybrand Bakker
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am a new CSE student. If i want to be a apple developer , what language i have to learn ????

1. Learn C
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I don't know anything about programming! What books should I read to start?

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Should I read 'The C Programming Language, 2nd edition, by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie' (I've got an access to that book) and then some book that covers Objective C and then some book about Cocoa, or what? What about the 'Dummies' book, is it any good?
Thank you!

Two books are working well for me (I determined to learn Cocoa in March '08), *Programming in Objective-C* by Kochan (2nd Ed.), and *Cocoa Programming For Mac OS X* by Hillegass (3rd Ed.). Kochan's book is extremely good to learn about classes, objects, and general syntax, and assumes absolutely no programming background. There is nothing in there about XCode or Interface Builder. Hillegass' text is good, but really designed for those that have some programming experience and covers some introductory Interface Builder topics as well. It is labor-intensive, though, and to really get the most out of it, you need A LOT of time and a quiet place to work.
I still refer to the CocoaLab document for some things, and there are a number of blogs on learning different aspects of Cocoa out there as well. They are not always easy to find; cocoa, xcode, and then specific NSxxxx class names are the terms that give the best Google results. I have seen rumors that Kochan's book will have a new edition later in the year to cover some of the Objective-C 2.0 topics.
Good Luck,

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I need a small script that moves all videos, images and other files in a folder to
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Now, this is how I would usually do something like this:
1) Install exiv2 and mediainfo and various other cli-tools that can extract timestamps from file meta data.
2) Mess around with those programs until after piping the output trough about 200 grep's and sed's I get a line of bash for everything I need.
3) Stick those lines together somehow into one huge mess consisting basically of just one single giant line of bash that inexplicably does the job
4) Instantly forget how it works and somehow accidental mess up my whole system the next time I try to modify & execute the script.
I already almost finished a bash script that works like that. And broke it. And don't understand how it works any more, so I was about to start over... but at the moment I guess I might have just enough spare time to do it right instead... so...
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- Use various external tools (like exiv2 and mediainfo from the repos) or take something that has... uhm... API's or something... to handle... tag stuff itsself?
- What language / tools / methods would a programmer that knows all there is to know choose for a job like this?
I've written a lot of small scripts and a few "programs" in the past but never really got around to learn programming... for some reason I just got used to do everything I needed with only a few functions, loops and a lot of trying around + copy&paste somehow even if the code gets insanely awkward & impractical... so... I have no idea where to start looking for a "good" solution to this problem.
Any hints?
Thx!

Argh, I tried - seems to work but I made a mess again and just looking at it confuses me. It's not as bad as usual, but still...:
(replaced the mv's + mkdir's by echo's for "debugging" purposes:)
#!/bin/zsh
pushd "$1" && {
basefolder=$(readlink -fn "$1")
find ./ -type f -print0 | sort | while read -d $'\0' file
do
echo -n "#"
unset year minute hour day month TIME second newname fname dname debout part1 part2 part3
fname=$(basename "$file")
dname=$(dirname "$file")
filethm=$(echo $file | sed "s/...$/THM/")
file "$filethm" | grep -q "image" && {
exiv2 pr "$filethm" | grep -a stamp | sed "s/.*$....:..:.. .*$/\1/" | sort | grep -Ev "[[:alpha:]]" | head -n1 |\
IFS=" -:" read year month day hour minute second bla bla bla;
debout="INFO for $file pulled from $filethm: $year-$month-$day $hour-$minute-$second"
part1="$year-$month-$day"
part2="$hour-$minute-$second"
echo "$part1 - $part2" | grep -q -E "^[1-2][0-9][0-9][0-9]-[0-1][0-9]-[0-3][0-9] - [0-2][0-9]-[0-5][0-9]-[0-5][0-9]" ||\
file "$file" | grep -q "image" && {
exiv2 pr "$file" | grep -a stamp | sed "s/.*$....:..:.. .*$/\1/" | sort | grep -Ev "[[:alpha:]]" | head -n1 |\
IFS=" -:" read year month day hour minute second bla bla bla;
part1="$year-$month-$day"
part2="$hour-$minute-$second"
echo "$part1 - $part2" | grep -q -E "^[1-2][0-9][0-9][0-9]-[0-1][0-9]-[0-3][0-9] - [0-2][0-9]-[0-5][0-9]-[0-5][0-9]" ||\
mediainfo "$file" | grep -q date && {
mediainfo "$file" | grep -a date | sed "s/.*$....-..-.. .*$/\1/" | sort | grep -Ev "[[:alpha:]]" | head -n1 | IFS=" -:" \
read year month day hour minute second bla bla bla;
unset IFS
part1="$year-$month-$day"
part2="$hour-$minute-$second"
part3=$(echo $fname | sed "s/^[0-2][0-9]-[0-5][0-9]-[0-5][0-9]_//");
echo "$part1 - $part2" | grep -q -E "^[1-2][0-9][0-9][0-9]-[0-1][0-9]-[0-3][0-9] - [0-2][0-9]-[0-5][0-9]-[0-5][0-9]" ||\
debout="$debout No meta data for $file ($part1-$part2), taking creation date + filename: "
# Get year-month-day
part1=$(stat -c%y "$file" | awk -F " |:|\\\.|-" '{printf $1"-"$2"-"$3}')
# Get hour-minute-second
part2=$(stat -c%y "$file" | awk -F " |:|\\\.|-" '{printf $4"-"$5"-"$6}')
debout="$debout ${part1}/${part2}_${part3}";
# Destination filename
newname=./${part1}/${part2}_${part3};
[ "$newname" != "$file" ] && {\
echo $debout;
if ! [ -d $(dirname "$newname") ]
then echo mkdir -p $(dirname "$newname") -v
fi
echo mv "$file" "$newname" -v --backup=numbered
done
popd
Also, for some reason it doesn't work with bash. Only zsh. No idea why.
I just have accumulated too many bad habits with bash I guess... Any hints on how I should proceed now?
Throw the whole script away and try to learn python? xD
Last edited by whoops (2012-11-30 14:05:33)

I feel I must move beyond iMovie, what program should I use ?

I have been happily using iMovie and iDVD from versions 1 through 6. iMovie 08 was so bad that Apple made iMovie 06 available as a free download for buyers of iMovie 08. The newer iMovies were better, but they seemed “dumbed down” (even for me). Now, I am shocked and horrified to learn that the latest iMovie does not even set chapter markers!
So, I have continued to use iMovie 06 and iDVD 08 (they seem to work fine under OS 10.9.4).   iMovie 06 is now 8 years old! I feel compelled to move forward. A lot of my work is DV.    In the past, most of my source material came out of S-Video.   I used a Canopus ADVC300 analog-to-digital converter that gave good results.   Going forward, I will have more video utilizing Component Video, or HDMI.
I am looking into 2 possibilities, Adobe Premiere elements 12, or.........Final Cut Pro X.
The final result of my work is almost always a DVD.   It is hard for me to move from iMovie and iDVD. I never read the manuals for either program, yet, I was able to produce DVDs with nice menus and overall quality close to Hollywood.
It looks like Final Cut Pro X 'can' make a DVD directly without other software. However, from what I have seen on YouTube the result is primitive compared to what iDVD was doing 10 years ago.
Adobe Premiere elements 12 can make nice DVDs and Blu-ray's directly. I have no problem with using a separate program to make DVDs but I haven't got a clue how to do that with Final Cut Pro X.   I suppose I can still use iDVD, but now I'm back to using discontinued software.
I do not need any of the high-powered affects capability that Final Cut Pro X possesses. My “movie-making” is mostly confined to simple editing (the old iMovie 06 did all I needed).
Frankly, one motivation for choosing Final Cut Pro X, is the excellent, compassionate and understanding support that the kind people on this very forum provide. So, what program should I use?

Ziatron wrote:
... I am shocked and horrified to learn that the latest iMovie does not even set chapter markers!
.. I am looking into 2 possibilities, Adobe Premiere elements 12, or.........Final Cut Pro X.
The final result of my work is almost always a DVD. ...
... I do not need any of the high-powered affects capability that Final Cut Pro X possesses. My “movie-making” is mostly confined to simple editing (the old iMovie 06 did all I needed).
to turn perspective for a second by 180°:
Why do you want to switch to a new editor anyhow?
• iM-a never did discs - that was iDVDs job = no big change in your workflow
• iDVD is still working, and aside obsolete, complex and $$$$ DVDSP (part of obsolete FC/p) or Encore (part of Adobes CC rent package) your only option left to create disks on MacOS is indeed iDVD (...ok, there's Toast and Burn and some weird 'shareware'-stuff...)..
• iMovie-b supports the new HDef formats (AVCHD) - you mentioned converters and DVDs = no HDef in use, in your habitat, correct?
• if you don't need FCPX' bling-bling (I can't imagine that ) - why not using FCPX-lite = iMovie? 15$ ...
• chapters could be done in iDVD - just to mention that ............
• AP and FCPX are following very different concepts in usage - my personal preference is 200% on FCPX, … I was one of the loudest nay-sayers, when iM08 araised, meanwhile, FCPX is my dream!! AP (tested it) is way too complex, crowded, 'optionalized' and did I mention 'complex' for me. A bit like Windows vs. MacOS: 'everything goes' (incl. getting lost) vs. 'convenience' (incl. restrictions) ... After 2y of practice, I'm editing my weekly hobby-projects with 6-cam-Multicam, incl. tons of custom graphics, slow-mow, effects (soccer games) in less than 2h ... awesome!
summary:
• why switching?
• use iMovie10 + iDVD
• Premiere (or Premiere Elements!) and FCPX are both avail as fee trial ... test it - but you need iDVD anyhow
• 'disks' is a dwindling niché, for years!- consider to switch to 'other' distribution options
... what are 'chapters' anyhow??... (kid din'!)

What language should I learn?

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