Linux Programming

Depends on what you want to do. For serious programming, C/C++ would be the way to go. Most of the stuff is written in C or C++. There are lot of scripting facilities, with TCL/TK, Perl, Python.

This site isn't probably the right place to get the most definitive answer to your question though. Try one of the linux forums.

<b><font color=red>"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."</font color=red><font color=blue> - Benjamin Franklin</font color=blue></b>

It's not as easy as you may think  
There are many languages that are popular in Linux, but choosing which one to use depends on what you want to do and personal preference. C/C++ is good for app development and such, Perl is good for scripting etc. My personal preference is Python since it's very easy and I do some scripting, and it is also a very good beginning language that you can integrate with C later on. Perl, IMHO as a non-programmer is too hard to read for easy troubleshooting. I do some C and Java, but find that Python serves my needs well and mostly use that.

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My new years resolution is 1280 x 1024

What is scripting? Thanks for the replies...

"This means that you can play over a network, just not with each other."-PC GAMER review

Assuming you're more familiar with windows...

Normal programming language code has to be compiled into binaries before it can be executed. For example, in windows, the code is compiled into exe and dll files etc. The exe files are executable, and they can make use of the dll files etc.

Then there are scripts such as vbscript [**SHIVER**] which windows can interprete and execute directly (incedentaly, so can almost all virii and trojans), without the need for compilation.

Similarly Linux has both facilites. Almost everything in the core bits and pieces are written using C (may be a lot of the stuff has moved onto C++ now). In great unix tradition, most of the utilities that make use of the core programs etc. are written in shell scripts. Basically they are contain code that the unix shell knows how to execute without the need for compilation.

The shell is basically what the windows command prompt tries to be. Perl is also very popular, but if you're new to this stuff (and by the sounds of it, you are) stay away from pearl, unless you need to modify existing stuff.

I'd agree that python is the scripting language to learn, even though i've never written anything in python. It comes highly recommended from all the unix people I know.

Many of the gui tools are written in another scripting language called Tcl/Tk. the syntax of that is very much like C.

<b><font color=red>"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."</font color=red><font color=blue> - Benjamin Franklin</font color=blue></b>