[amsat-bb] Programming language recommendation?

[Alan P. Biddle]

We have a lot of folks here who do programming at a variety of levels.
After a 20+ year hiatus, I am looking to get back into doing a bit of
programming.  The intent is not to get into it at a professional level, but
to be able to rip off quick and dirty small programs.  Data acquisition,
taking the output of a program and merge and reformat it for specific
purposes, which of course I can do in some cases with Excel, are a couple of
things which come to mind.  It will need the ability to interact with
external hardware.  However, the primary purpose is as a brain stretcher for
someone who once thought F*RTR*N was a real language.

I am tempted to say that I am looking for the current generation BASIC, but
I am want something a bit beyond that, though of course the ability to print
"Hello World" with less than 10 lines of code is a plus.  ;)  And it needs
to be something I can get into using a free or low cost compiler.  I am not
much interested in spending a few hundred dollars.

People have recommended Python, older versions of Delphi, early version of
C, etc, as what I should do.  Well, maybe.  So if anyone has a good
recommendation, please contact me OFF LIST.  And did I say, it needs to be
cheap?!   



Alan
WA4SCA

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What's the opposite of Diversity?
University!

Catherine McMillan