Computer Ease
From nswccWiki
A Cornucopia of Computer Ease
The Language Guide is one reasonable starting place for researching about different languages. Many open source languages are script based and extremely useful for systems management. Some like, Python and PHP provide enhanced functionality to Web Browsers. Don't get bogged down in the "popular" languages or applications. Look at something new, that might just provide what you need to solve that difficult technology issue.
"Afnix is a multi-threaded functional programming language with dynamic symbol bindings that support the object oriented paradigm". Some of its interesting features are: it has a small foot print, has features from the C stable and Lisp stable of languages. Two really interesting features are multithreading, and closures making it very useful in distributed multi-core processor environments.
Free Pascal is a free version of Pascal, the language that help to spur on the personal computer revolution. The first Apple Macintosh system software was written in a version of Pascal.
"Python is a dynamic object-oriented programming language that can be used for many kinds of software development. It is up to Vers. 3.0.1. The standard Macintosh system environment comes with Python installed. It has a strong presence in Web scripting. Its MacOS X distribution contains an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
"Rebol was created by Carl Sassenrath. He is the system designer known for bringing multitasking to personal computers. REBOL is more than just a programming language. It is also a language for representing data and metadata. It provides a consistent architecture for computation, storage, and exchange of information. It is an integrated solution to distributed computing that works best when it runs on both the client and the server." This is one of the (new) breed of lightweight languages focused on distributed computing.
Biferno 1.6.0 is an excellent free (Open Source Project) programming language/ scripting language that is extremely similar to PHP in 'look and feel". It is used as a server side include processor and can use <?..?> tags or <>biferno .. ?> tags. Properly formed Biferno files include a mix of Biferno, and HTML. the extension is .bfr. Biferno is object oriented but does not have the many functions that PHP now has. If you are interested in an alternative to PHP, but don't want to stray too far from PHP then it is well worth a look. Although of Italian origin, it is well documented in English. I consider Biferno to have a "cleaner" implementation than PHP, perhaps because it does not have the legacy of PHP.
Biferno is very easy to install on a Macintosh in place of PHP or working with PHP. There are also releases for Linux and Win32.
"Rexx is a procedural programming language that allows programs and algorithms to be written in a clear and structured way. It is easy to use by experts and casual users alike. Rexx has been designed to make easy the manipulation of the kinds of symbolic objects that people normally deal with such as words and numbers". Rexx has a long history as a scripting language at IBM. It has some very interesting features.
