Re: Programming

[Brian Gehrke <bjgehrke () sbcglobal net>]

Ben,

The first question you should ask is not "what programming language do I 
want to learn" but "what do I want to do with the program that I am 
going to write".  All of the languages mentioned have features that make 
them better for specific tasks then other languages.  You wouldn't write 
a device driver with Perl, just as you wouldn't write a Web Application 
in Assembly Language.  Learning programming to "increase my knowledge 
about security", is a very broad statement.  Are you saying you want to 
learn how to write secure code, or are you saying you want to explore 
what mistakes programmers make the cause security holes in software?  
Maybe you really don't want to look into either one.  Maybe you just 
want to have the ability to write scripts that can help you monitor the 
security of your computer/network.  There are some fundamentals in 
programming that can translate across all languages, such as date 
structures, oo programing, patterns, etc.  These, in my opinion, are 
best learned by programming in a compiled language such as C/C++ or 
Java.  Scripting languages such as Perl and Python have their place, but 
they tend to cover up a lot of the details. 

Just my random thoughts, take it as you will.

BG



dayz () planet nl wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I want to begin with learning programming to increase my knowledge about
> security, but I don't know where to begin. Can someone tell me which
> programming language is good to start with, and pherhaps what book
> and/or online guides I should take a look at?
> It would be nice that if I learn a programming language that it
> shouldn't be much work to understand another one.
>
> I am on Linux and Windows.
>
> Thanks for the help.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ben
>
>