[ale] Language Jihad!

[Dow Hurst]

I have wanted to learn a programming language for a while now.  My
thoughts were first with Perl for sysadmin.  Later, I thought I'd go
with Python to get Object Oriented type code but still have the string
manipulation capabilities.  Right now, Barnes and Noble has a C++ class
online I am trying out.  Also, I discovered Ruby which has high praises
for useability and versatility.  Tcl is interesting and people have
praised Ada95 to me.  I am a bit confused over the whole "what is best"
thing and believe that whatever will get the job done with the least
fuss and bother is probably best.  I've bought books but until I get
really fired up and believe I am on the "right" track, I just lose
interest!

I really had a laugh over the "Language Holy War" email replies over the
html link sed regexp question by Christopher Bergeron!
<trying to clean up coffee spilled from hilarious laughter with pages
from Solomon's "Organic Chemistry">

<I hated Organic Chemistry!>

Can someone convince me which is the best all around language to use? 
Seems that C++ isn't so difficult but I really like Ruby and Perl for
the simplicity of how much code you have to write to get something done.

Of course, I really enjoy piping basic unix commands together such as:

 grep -n 'chemical connectivity' inputfile |
 awk -v FS=: '{print($1)}' |
 xargs -i echo " -e '{},{} s/0X    4 /0X   11 /g' \"
 >> output_sed_script.txt

Now that was fun!!
Dow
 
-- 
__________________________________________________________
Dow Hurst                   Office: 770-499-3428
Systems Support Specialist  Fax:    770-423-6744
1000 Chastain Rd.
Chemistry Department SC428  Email:dhurst at kennesaw.edu
Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com
Kennesaw, GA 30144
***************************************
*Computational Chemistry is hard work!*
***************************************
--
To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.