I think I have a need to learn a programming language or similar, but I'm at a loss to know which one fits my needs well. I found lots of Web sites with comparisons, but they use lots of words that I don't understand. I need this just as a tool. I won't be going into CS.

- I need to manipulate or create files.

- I need to extract text from one file and rearrange it into another format in another file.

- I need to sort, alphabetize information; search for text matching a specific pattern.

- I need to generate or modify the syntax documents written in LaTex or other markup.

- I need to work with multiple languages and alphabets, all mixed together. Chinese, English, Russian, IPA.

- I need a language with some really really well-written books that can help me to get started.

- In the future, I may need to work with massive amounts of information (books), so I don't want to end up with a language that is going to suprise me by telling me, "Sorry, but you're limited to using only 19,908 of these things..."

I'm not good with math.

If I come back in six months, I want to know what I wrote.

- I don't need to make GUIs or any fancy software that another person other than myself will use.

- I don't need to put anything On-line.

there are already programs that will do some of that (awk and sed) scripting sounds like what you want to be doing.

1 members found this post helpful.

"Massive" in software moved beyond the level of the amount of text in a book years ago.

Maybe you have ten thousand characters on a page (rough ballpark estimate). Maybe you have a thousand pages in a book. That would be ten million characters of text.

Processing ten million characters of text is a scale of operation where you don't even consider the performance. You just consider the convenience and accuracy with which you can specify the operation.

Maybe you can still find some lame old text processing tools that limit you to 19,908 of some interesting feature. But with most languages and tools you aren't going to hit any significant limits within ten million characters of text.

If you want to process massive amounts of information (which today might be complex transformations of thousands of books at a time worth of text), your best choice would be C++. But if you're not going to be a professional programmer and you don't need C++, I wouldn't advise you to learn it for your project.

Perl,Python

Perl,Python

Perl,Python

Perl,Python

Perl,Python

Perl,Python

Perl,Python

Perl,Python

Python

Conclusion: Python.

2 members found this post helpful.

Python is ideal for what you're doing as is Perl. FWIW I found Python easier to learn than Perl, but that's just how my brain works.

This is a good book.

That depends a lot on the programmer, and I haven't done enough in Perl for a meaningful comparison. But I have done enough in Python and enough other languages to know that is a weakness of Python, not a strength.

Python makes it much easier to slap together an unmaintainable mess that initially works, than Java or C++ or many other languages.

I have worked on code written by bad programmers in many languages. Bad programmers make a bigger mess in Python than in many other languages. They are less able to remember or explain their own code a few months later in Python than in many other languages.

I have never worked on any good code in Python (because the good programmers I have worked with would never select Python). I expect some of the Python advocates here at LQ can write good code in Python. More of writing good code comes from the programmer, not the language.

Python may well be better than Java for text processing applications. But it doesn't come near Java for guiding you toward writing the kind of code you will still understand when you look at it six months later.

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You want perl.

C is good to learn but not so great at rearanging files etc.
BASH
BASH
BASH
C, Not sure about bash.
Google
Basically anything
Thats a tough one

I second Perl, it's made for text processing, has excellent documentation and a great deal of modules which will help you with many related tasks to your subject.

Just learn how to write it properly and don't just hack it into your editor and you'll be fine.

You get "speed" on top of it, btw.

You should consider buying "Mastering Regular Expressions" which will help you anyway - no matter wether you chose Perl or Python.

It really depends on how you intend to sort things, i.e. if you'll be sorting structured data or not. For example, if you're sorting contact info (name, phone, etc.) it might not be as simple as sorting lines of text, especially if you need to sort by multiple criteria. I'd say shell scripting isn't what you need because although it could be made to work, you'd be learning to deal with unnecessary confines vs. learning how to effectively choose a language based on your requirements. I use 6 languages at work regularly, often combining them in chains of tools, based on what I need to get done.

You should figure out how your data needs to be dealt with (specifics,) turn that into how it might be grouped into objects or structures and how they might be acted on, then choose a language that can support those representations and operations. You might consider C++, lisp, or Java. Though they take longer to learn than some simpler languages, you'll be able to learn other languages after that fairly easily.
Kevin Barry

PS I guess I consider shell scripting an incidental skill required of anyone who needs to get anything done in Linux, so don't skip it, but don't treat it as a destination.

Python - Its a general purpose programming language that's easy to use and has loads of (free) tutorials/docs

For reference, my university (I'm working towards a Bachelor of Computer Science) used to teach C++ to first years, jumped on the Java bandwagon when I was in first year, so I learnt Java, in second year, I could use C, Java, or whatever (with permission) for my pracs, I had to learn Python for another one of my subjects, (and I have just begun to learn Lisp.) Other languages around are Perl, Javascript, HTML, PHP. I have also played with Bash.

The key to learning how to program is not so much about what language you choose (though that can help) but actually learning how to program. You can mess around with *insert language* and not really learn much beyond "hello world" if you don't understand algorithms, data structures, and how programming works.

If BASIC and HTML don't count as "real" languages, I started with Java. I found Python pretty easy to learn, but I had already understood the concept of programming, so I could look up on google: "I want to do *this*" and work out how to do it in Python.

Most languages today (Perl, Java, Python, C, C++, Bash, etc) have heaps of googlable resources to help you out.

So, pick a language. Don't listen to "this other language is way better" in at least your first 6 months: stick to your guns. Your job is to conquer how to program, and it doesn't matter what you pick, you can learn more easily after the first one. There are some good suggestions in this thread- Perl or Python (etc) would be good choices.

General -

I don't disagree with any of the replies people have posted, and I especially agree with ghostdog74 and titanium_geek.

If you're curious about Perl, and if you're looking for a very "well-written book", you can't go wrong with the classic "Llama book":

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Perl-.../dp/0596520107

IMHO ..PSM

When I meant "massive", I should have stated "about 400 million words." I see now, maybe that adjective isn't so good to use in the computing world. It is a number pretty much too big for me to comprehend.

Suggesting good programmers you know would never work on Python is bizarre and then saying maybe some good programmers here might use it is insulting.

Any language can be hard to follow if not well written and well documented.

The counter argument to Java is it's slow due to it needing a virtual machine. The fact is, if you write Python code in a well structured way and comment it well, it will be as readable as any language.