On: Ask HN: Where's the fun in programming?

[alexwyser]

What language would you recommend to be the most fun to work with?

Whats the best way for a beginner to learn that (I know by practice, but which books, websites, tutorials, and in what order) ?

[japherwocky → alexwyser]

Python is a great language to learn and work with: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/

[bryanh → japherwocky]

The reasons Python is so appealing to me are numerous, but the primary ones are (1) Django (2) script based (like PHP, no waiting for compilation) (3) easy to scan (no need for {} and everything is nicely nested)

It's good, clean fun if you ask me. Just the other day I even wrote a script to listen in on my sound card and emit an unpleasant 20k tone when my dog barked. That kind of programming is what you call fun!

[patrickk → alexwyser]

Ruby on Rails. Hard to say if it's the "most fun", but it allows you to dive in and start coding quite quickly. Far nicer to use than PHP, which I did in college and hated it.

Books:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-ava... - this is from another recent HN thread, scroll down to the section for Ruby. Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby is very wacky but worth the read.

Screencasts:

http://railscasts.com/

Also a good article on Lifehacker that will help you:

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/11/programmer-101-teach-yo...

[gte910h → alexwyser]

Python web development and ruby on rails are very rewarding in how quick they get things done. Might check that out.