About me (and programming)

My programming experience and curiosity span from assembly 680x0 on Amiga machine to scripting languages like Perl. I like almost every programming language and explored (and maybe still exploring) Pascal, (A)Rexx, C, E, Modula2, C++, Fortran, Forth, Java, PHP, Python, Bash, sed, awk, M4 (if you call it programming language rather than macro processor, which is the right definition for it) and perhaps more I can't remember, with very different degrees of knowledge. (Forgetting about PostScript, Metafont, T_EX...)

Anyway rarely these experiences passed beyond the threshold of usefulness or deep knowledge. So I am able to do real thing in C, Bash (with GNU tools around of course), Perl; but already on Perl some expert could say my jobs are silly toys. If I can still disagree with him, I would agree if talking about C++, Java, Python and a lot more, where I discontinued to the first or maybe third lesson, so that Hello world is almost all I can do, of course taking a look to the manual since I hardly can remember details, because of everyday un-use.

I explored several languages in several years. For example I began studying Pascal on my first Amiga as alternative to assembly (yes, nowadays still programming on an Amiga Operating System, using MC680x0 assembly, just for fun) and it was my first high level language (not considering the BASIC of the ZX Spectrum); then I've almost forgotten it! I think I am able to read and understand code written in Pascal, but it's hard I can produce new useful code from zero... if I was quite good at, say, Fortran three years ago, it does not mean I am quite good at Fortran now!

Several languages are awaiting for me out there: Ruby, Lisp, Ada, Lua, Modula3, Smalltalk, E, Erlang, Haskell, Prolog etc etc... And more are demanding attention: C++, Java... The life is one. Time runs, and there are a lot of worthy things in real life.

Languages are all around us. We use it to comunicate, to show our ideas, our passions, our thoughts; we use it to describe procedures, complex or simple tasks, and so on. Music is a language too, also a painted canvas is a language, and mathematics too, of course. Our body speaks its own language and the human ability of handling complex languages is what makes us different.