Hi, everyone

TL;DR - post below your suggestion for a good programming language for an almost-rookie teacher/educator/writer to start using.

More info: I am trying to decide on which programming language to learn. I know my way around HTML and CSS from being active online, but haven’t done much programming apart from this. I write, teach, and work with digital teaching/learning products a lot. In 2021, I think there will be plenty of time for me to start working with programming. I don’t mean just “learn to code” - I mean using the language(s) as an educator/writer/publisher. Libre / open source context preferred. Which languages look like they fit the bill, Lemmy?

  • Echedenyan@lemmy.ml
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    4 years ago
    (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
         ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
              ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
    )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
    ))))))))))))))))))))))
    ))))))))))))
    

    If I can use the parenthesis in the way that keys or tags in XML are used (as true trees) then I will accept it.

    However, this is not common nor the standard way which make examples harder to help with learning.

      • Echedenyan@lemmy.ml
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        4 years ago

        I think you mean SXML which is a variation of XML with S-Expressions.

        But what I mean is writting Lisp like a XML tree which would be pretty similar to SXML for readability.

        • acidwash jeans@lemmy.ml
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          4 years ago

          I actually haven’t heard of SXML, so I meant regular lisp. For me, I just mean that this is pretty tree-based, so far as I can tell (I’m not an actual programmer, though, which might be the issue with my understanding):

          (defun foo (bar baz)
            (if (predicate)
                (do if true)
              (do if false)))
          
          • Echedenyan@lemmy.ml
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            4 years ago

            This is an XML tree:

            This is an SXML tree compared with an XHTML (XML based HTML) tree:

            SXML uses the standard S-Expressions syntax but what I expect is being able to use more this:

            (*TOP* 
              (@ 
                (*NAMESPACES* 
                  (x "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml")
                )
              )
              (x:html 
                (@ 
                  (xml:lang "en") 
                  (lang "en")
                )
                (x:head
                   (x:title "An example page")
                )
                (x:body
                  (x:h1 
                    (@ 
                      (id "greeting")
                    ) 
                    "Hi, there"
                  )
                  (x:p  "This is just an >>example<< to show XHTML & SXML.")
                )
              )
            )
            

            I think that most people liking Lisp don’t want to change the current formatting standard and maybe most of them have eagle view or a good “mind parser” but it is more readable for me writing like this. I can identify errors easily and I don’t have to count the parenthesis as I have been doing for reading Scheme and Lisp basic programs well.

            I also combine this with tabulation of 4 characters instead of soft-tabs (real white spaces) of 2 characters like some people do due to the JS influence.

            • acidwash jeans@lemmy.ml
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              4 years ago

              Oh, well if you just mean a formatting thing – you can format a source file however you want :) But yeah, that’s not really the popular way to do it. For me, just the opening tags + indentation work well enough to delimit everything, but to each their own.