[lug] Learnin Linux on yer own..... my own little RFC!!!

[PC Drew]

Thus spake John Starkey on Saturday, April 08, 2000, 4:22:59 PM:

JS> So what would you
JS> guy/gals recommend I learn. If I had to work next to you on a project what
JS> skills (in terms of languages and getting around the system) would you
JS> want to see.

Sorry, I got a little side tracked :)

It's been my experience that knowing a little about a lot, and a lot
about 1 or 2 languages is the best.  For instance, I know a lot about
C++ and HTML.  I know a little about Perl, Expect, PHP, Python,
Java...etc.  This way, when I go into a project I can pick and choose
which language I feel is the best.  From there, I just refresh my
memory a little on the syntax and I'm fine.

Not many people (that I run into at least) have ever heard of Expect,
and yet I think it's one of the greatest scripting languages ever
written!  By knowing it's capabilities, I know that I can write an
expect script to say...log into a machine, do some stuff, then store
the results into a file and get it back to me.

So, my advice would be to learn enough about a lot of languages so
that you know what tool to use and when.  This is also handy with UNIX
tools like sed, awk, grep, find, etc.