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What's the best programming language for a hobbyist?

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Re: What's the best programming language for a hobbyist?

#31
post #30

You write "I want to learn a new programming language, or continue learning one I started in school, something that will compensate for the lack of algorithms in my work" If that is all you want, almost any language will do. Maybe, you want to take on a new one every month or so for a while to get a broader view on what's out there. Your experience, it seems, is only with Algol :-), so I would pick something differen…

I guess my itch is the fact that at work I do the same thing almost every day (make them websites, add guest checkout, style the page, integrate X and Y's API). It's becoming tedious and boring. I think my learning curve is now flat. I need some new challenges from which I can learn new stuff, use more math and elegant algorithms.

This is why I think I will be going to make some small games (monogame & C#, js)... and after I learn JS properly, I will definitely try some functional languages (Haskell). I think this will make me better at programming and help me see things from a different point of view... and most of all, have fun doing new things.

Re: What's the best programming language for a hobbyist?

#32
I've learned Python exactly same purposes as a hobbyist. Although it depends on your learning curve, Its easy to start and continue. You can find tons of examples for every level. Also if you interested with web developing, Django (Python web framework) can be good solution. If you are total beginner, this lesson will be very useful: https://www.udacity.com/course/cs101

Re: What's the best programming language for a hobbyist?

#33
Why not do some competitive programming? That should utilize the algorithms you learned and you could use any/all of the languages you already know (Pascal, C++, Java,C#)

Here are some good sites you might enjoy:

http://www.spoj.com/

http://community.topcoder.com/tc

http://codeforces.com/

http://projecteuler.net/ (Math Focused Problems)

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