And Now for Something Completely Different

One of the pragmatic programmer tenets is to learn a new programming language every year. I'm a bit behind on that, I haven't learn a new language since 2002 (I don't count objective C because I hate it and have only learnt the bare minimum necessary to get by). Unfortunately the need to earn a living has gotten in the way of random learning.

However I have now been programming in Delphi for 15 years. It's starting to get a bit boring and it's time to kick-start the brain again. While Delphi will be my main language for the near future, I am going to make the effort to learn something different.

The main things I am looking for in my language de jour are

• Dynamically typed (I have done statically typed languages for decades)
• Popular (general rule of thumb, should be at least as popular as delphi)
• Object Orientated
• Cross platform
  
• Batteries included
  

This pretty much narrows it down to Perl, Php, Python and Ruby. I was initially tempted by Ruby as I don't yet have an R on my alphabetical list of programming languages. However I have settled on Python instead.

Part of the reason for going with Python is the presence of the Python for Delphi components. These promise to let you use python as a scripting language inside delphi apps. These components are used in the PyScripter ide.

The easiest way I have found to get started is to use Portable Python. This will put Python and a few tools (inc. PyScripter) into a portable drive along with a few tools and useful modules such as Django. This is considerably easier for a python newbie than sourcing and installing the packages separately.

Some useful links to get started with:
Official website
Official python tutorial (v2.6)
Dive onto python online book (useful but a bit old)
Pycon US 2009 videos
Reddit python feed