Which programming language is best to learn next?

I feel pretty confident programming in lisp. But it seems that this language isn't in much use these days..


What would be a good programming language to get familiar with?


C? Java? Python? Perl?


Or would getting familiar with a unix system be a better choice?

Which programming language is best to learn next?
Do you mean Linux? If so, it's just a matter of compilation and not the language.





In my opinion, Python is a great language for you to start out with. If you already know a language like Lisp, you'd be able to pick up Python with no problem. Its IDE is like a command prompt, so it's very easy to go one line at a time to play around - which is something Java cannot do in Eclipse and C definitely can't do in command line programming.





When I say Python is good to start with, by no means end there. Explore other languages and see where you end up. But to get started, I believe that it's best to go with an easier language that has good documentation but is not too rigidly regulated (like Java). Python is the most flexible language I've ever come across and it's fun to work in. I think you'd love it if you try it and from there you can try the more complicated languages.
Reply:Learning C will be very useful to learn further other languages. The structure of C program is easy to understand and more stuff is there to play with.





If you feel somewhat difficult to learn C. You can try BASIC, which will be very easy to program and play with.
Reply:C is probably the most basic language


Personally, I started with Actionscript in Flash MX 2004, which is similar to C
Reply:If you want to have fun programming, I have to recommend Perl. I don't believe any other language makes it possible to do so much with the least amount of effort. (Particularly after discovering CPAN.) Perl provides some functional-language support using map, grep, and sub. Also, GUIs are a breeze (compared to other platforms) with Gtk2-perl.





I've never used perl on windows, but I know people who have, and they say that Strawberry Perl works fairly well.





The book "Learning Perl" is what got me started with it.
Reply:Go into Java next, it's so beginning programmer friendly and it will instill the OOP and programming standards in you. Java has a lot of FREE available support on their forums from the members you can ask anything no matter how stupid and they'll answer it seriously not just tell you to go read it on Google. The language also has the best documentation for the API I've ever seen only thing that could make it better would be videos and they even got a little bit of that now. Java is great because it is cross platform so whatever type of machine your working on you can deliver your work to anyone anywhere. And best of all Java has J2ME so if you get interested in programming things for you cell phone, rather than for local computer use or a webpage. After learning Java then I would move on to C++ or maybe C but probably C++ it's just a great robust language that can get'er done. However this is coming from my perspective of a programmer wanting to create applications and games. If you learn to create create web pages and work with a lot of microsoft based products then learn Visual Basic this will easily let you code vbscript although java will let you code javascript too. VB and Java aren't the same as their scripting cousins but they are so similar you won't have much trouble learning the scripting languages.