What are some easy languages to learn by yourself?

[hellfire1]

Hey all,

I am learning C++ still, but in 2 months, I'll be "done" with it, although not experienced in everything yet.

So after that I would like to pick up and go about learning another programming language, while I continue to improve upon my C++.

The thing is I would have to be self-teaching myself the language. So does anyone know a programming language that is learnable by yourself? I'm taking Java next semester, so that one is out, but does anyone else have something different?

EDIT: Easy is the wrong word, but you know what I mean^

-Drew

[ResidentBiscuit]

Uh you can learn any language by yourself. Java and C# are both easy to pick up, and you'll get a lot of OOP experience with them. Python is a nice scripting language that's used everywhere (at work we use a pretty big SNMP monitor that's written purely in Python) and is easy to pick up and get things going. Not to mention having at least one scripting language under your belt is nice as there are lots of smaller tasks that are better suited for them.

But it all depends on what you wanna do and why you're studying.

[hellfire1]

Well, I know you can learn any language by yourself. Now that I think of the way I worded the question, it was a bit silly wasn't it?

Python interests me, I've heard about it before, but haven't really looked into it seriously. Are there any good books on it out there?

EDIT: Reason why I'm taking up another language is just that programming interests me, and I just had a desire to take up something new. I'd prefer something that would be useful or in demand later on, but it doesn't have to be.

[BHX]

Well for Python, I found this site great thus far : http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/

I've currently set into motion learning Python, Java, C#, C++, C, Assembly, Javascript, Ruby, Haskell. Then I plan to look into PHP, MySQL, XML, CSS, HTML, VB, and Lua. I love the languages and happily look froward to learning them.

[ETAkoG1T]

Python is great for a second language. I use python for some math problems. Like those on project euler, you should give it a try. I solved 2 of the problems without really knowing any python except that the variables dont need int in front of them to make them ints.
In c++:
int x = 12
In python:
x = 12
In c++:
std::cout << "The answer is " << x;
In python:
print("The answer is %s"%x)

Most simple things are as you may have notice quite a bit easier in python. Best of luck.

[BHX]

Also, some people recommend learning Python 2 before 3 and the first difference I think of is Python 2 is print "string" while Python 3 uses functions print("string/data").

[MrHutch]

It honestly depends what you want to write. It makes more sense to me to think of a project you'd like to do and then learn the language best suited to it.

For example, if you want to make an iPhone app, learn Objective C. A web app, maybe C#/.Net or PHP. An Android game, probably Java.

Even within the bounds of C++, there are a ton of libraries and APIs to make use of, most of which would require some learning. For example, you could give making programs with the Qt framework a go or perhaps render a 3D scene with OpenGL. Both C++, both completely different kettles of fish.

[S6k9GNh0]

I did UnrealScript as a first language which I could recommend again if you have any game that supports UnrealScript (basically anything from the Unreal series or uses the Unreal Engine).

If that's inconvenient, I suggest Python. Really a simple and lovely language. I was able to make a daemon controller in just a few hours without know any Python at all. I would normally suggest Python 3 since its the successor but for the sake of learning, I'm not sure it matters as long as you don't mix your syntax up.