Which language shall we learn?

Hi Jose,

We decided, while drinking an overly-priced red wine the other night, that I'd help you to learn how to program, but without making it sound complicated. So, I thought I'd show you a few different language syntaxes and let you choose.

You can do anything you want with any of these languages, so feel free to pick the prettiest or whichever makes you laugh, or use whatever other criteria you feel like.

I chose the top-10 current mainstream languages, with the exception of PHP, which is too focused on one kind of task, and added Scala, Haskell and Erlang, because I like them.

1.
import java.util.Scanner;

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
    System.out.println("Please enter your name.");  
    String line = scanner.nextLine();
    System.out.println("Nice to meet you, " + line + ".");
  }
}

2.
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
  char name[256];

  printf("Please enter your name.\n");
  scanf("%s", name);
  printf("Nice to meet you, %s.\n", name);
  return 0;
}

3.
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {
  string name;
  cout << "Please enter your name.\n");
  getline(cin, name);
  cout << "Nice to meet you, " << name << ".\n";
  return 0;
}

4.
Module example
  Public Sub Main()
    Dim line As String
    Console.WriteLine("Please enter your name.")
    line = Console.ReadLine()
    Console.WriteLine("Nice to meet you, " + line + ".")
  End Sub
End Module

5.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
print "Please enter your name.\n";
my $name = <>;
chomp $name;
print "Nice to meet you, $name.\n";

6.
using System;
class Hello {
  static void Main() {
    Console.WriteLine("Please enter your name.\n");
    var name = Console.ReadLine();
    Console.WriteLine("Nice to meet you, " + name + ".\n");
  }
}

7.
name = raw_input("Please enter your name: ")
print "Nice to meet you, ", name, "."

8.
importPackage(java.util);
scanner = new Scanner(System['in']);
System.out.println("Please enter your name.");
name = scanner.nextLine();
System.out.println("Nice to meet you, " + line + ".");

9.
puts "Please enter your name."
name = gets.chomp
puts "Nice to meet you, " + name

10.
main = do
  putStrLn "Please enter your name."
  name <- getLine
  putStrLn ("Nice to meet you, " ++ name ++ ".")

11.
val name = Console.readLine("Please enter your name.")
println("Nice to meet you, " + name + ".")

12.
Name = get_line("Please enter your name.").
put_chars("Nice to meet you, " ++ Name).