Re: Which language would be most helpful?

[parv]

something off tangent, but still on education, somewhat rant...

i self taught perl, rexx, applescript, and bourne shell (and TI-basic) during the time i was at the university and my last job.

(i understand perl, but not perl OO. comparatively, (OO wise) java is easier to understand, and seems like C++ would also be if struct is any indication. perhaps if i can be made to understand bless, AUTOLOAD, and DESTROY better, my remaining perl problems would go away.)

now that i can't seem to find work, i went looking to fill my time w/ computer related courses. i tried to find colleges around my area (martinsburg, west virigina) which would offer intermediate/advanced courses in C, cobol, of lisp family, or any of the OO (C++, smalltalk, or ruby in particular) languages.

i could not find anything related to C (so that i could understand and "fix" my favourite programs better), smalltalk (heard it's pure OO, wanted to check it out), lisp (have no experience what so ever), cobol (extensively used by others at my last job on os/390; i liked os/390), or ruby (printed english literature seems to be scarce).

in fall 2002 i took introductory C++ course (hagerstown community college); currently taking 2d part (advanced C++). concurrently i am also taking supposedly "advanced" java course at shepherd college.

so far java course is a disappointment mostly beacuse heavy use of IDE (jbuilder) instead of CLI when most of the students are catching up on the basics. in comparison, the C++ instructor is indifferent. (actually, he vehemently hates things microsoft.) imo, the java course focuses more on doo das than the core; references are not covered, neither is networking (i am thinking of servlets), the end portion of the course deals w/ graphical windows.