convince me

[holger krekel]

Kyle Babich wrote:
> Well, I'm 15 years old looking to have a future in programming.  I've
> been playing around with the basics of a few different languages (C,
> C++, Perl, Python, and Java).  I know I want to learn C, but as far as
> perl and python I'm trying to decide which.  I know right now perl can
> be considered more marketable, but I also like python because it looks
> to be growing and to have a good future.  But I started to learn perl
> before I found python (from another perl developer ironically).  I was
> wondering if there was anything that can be done in python that can't
> be done in perl.

First of all, i think it's a good idea to learn C especially if
you have some people or groups around you to answer questions. 
It gives you good fundamental knowledge what actually happens
on many computer systems (kernel, low level libraries).  

Learning python for getting your ideas to work is good, too.
And, as many people already said, you will hardly find problems
which you can't tackle with python but could with perl. 

So yes, go on with learning C and python and come back
if you get stuck on a python problem ...

Later on, you can write some C-extensions which you can use
in your python programs.  Python's C-API is commonly regarded
as elegant and relatively easy to grasp.

cheers,

    holger