python, perl, lisp, tcl / got a decision to make, can you give me a view point please ? and a joke for python users :)

[Alex Martelli]

"Yvon Boulianne" <mysticsguy at yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:3aba3076.14395287 at news.vif.com...
> Hello,  i'm a bit confused with so many language ;-)
> theres the story, i like to learn a programming language for 2 reasons
> 1- i want to be able to make some script on my web site (i heard about
> zope, don't know what it have to do with python)

Zope is _written_ in Python; for the scripts, it lets you use python
itself, or, now, Perl as an alternative.  Anyway, Python is great
for that (and many other uses).


> 2- i want to learn to keep my mind trained, i'm a mystic and i want to
> make this mental grow in ability ;-)

Unfortunately, Python is far too good a language to serve this
purpose.  It's so simple you won't get much mental exercise
learning it, and so powerful it will make it too easy for you to
write all kinds of programs.  For your purpose [2], I suggest
Haskell (it starts out easy, but when you get to monads they
WILL give your mind a workout -- when, and if, you emerge
alive and still sane, you will have moved to a higher level of
consciousness) or javascript (chaotically and ramblingly hard
to learn, yet wimpy enough that using it to write significant
programs is going to be serious exercise each and every time).


Alex