What to do next?

[hftz]

Hi all,

Its summer, and I've found myself with alot of free time on my hands. Not complaining, but I've gotta do something otherwise i'm going to go crazy. Anyway, I've decided that I want to learn something. I've been using linux for about a year solid now, and have picked up a few things along the way. Now I want to know what I should learn? A language might be cool, but I dont want it to be anything heavy. I'm on summer break after all, i'm not in the mood for racking my brain. So yeah, little help?

[Engnome]

Language as in programming language? If you are in too computers I think it would be very rewarding knowing atleast some programming. Even if its just a newbie friendly language like php or something. I myself has planned on extend my skill in java on my spring break. :cool:

[Ob1]

I avoid being idle by programming, so i recommend learning a/some programming language(s)

[ComplexNumber]

go for python. avoid C/C++ at all costs if you are new to programming. they'll leave you with a bad taste in your mouth and nightmares the further you get into it. python is the best choice because
-lots of python applications available
-lots of python bindings (eg for gtk etc)
-its one of the easiest languages to learn
-it teaches good programming practice (although i've never really come to terms with using tabs instead of curly brackets)
-its object orientated (almost all languages these days are. you are going to have to learn object oriented programming at some point, so learning python will give you as gentle an introduction as you're likely to get).

[harisund]

Go outside. Have some *real* fun

[Kvark]

Yeah go for Python if you want to learn programming. Python code is very clean, clear and easy to read compared to other languages (for proof look at Python source code and source code of other languages) and a Python program is usually shorter then programs in other languages that does exactly the same thing.

Another plus is ipython (or the normal python program but ipython is prettier) which lets you write Python interactively like in a bash terminal. To write one line of code at a time and follow the results step by step as you go is a much better way to explore then to write a whole program, save it, run it and then get an error message or the end result without feedback on what happend along the way. Besides being great for exploring ipython is also one of the best calculators I've ever seen.

[unbuntu]

a Python program is usually shorter then programs in other languages that does exactly the same thing.


Not if it's competing with perl:p Perl codes are wickedly short...but I still like Python more since it's much more user-friendly.

[tseliot]

Learn Bash, shell scripting, etc.

It's not hard and you might enjoy writing your own scripts to automate some operations.

It's very satisfying

[skinnygmg]

take a look at ruby!