HTML Formatter: Which language?

[kermit]

Well, do you *want* to learn a new language?

I'm climbing into C++ --my head is swimming in namespaces at the moment-- and rather enjoying it now that I've gotten past the block; strings and references ... yay! But then I always did do things the hard way...

I actually do want to learn something new (I guess I am doing some thinking out loud with this post). I know what you mean about your head swimming. For me (and I am not saying this applies to anyone but me) C++ always seemed like an insurmountably huge language. I know that may sound silly to some, but I never have seemed to be able to get into it. I will grant that part of the problem was lack of motivation (I did not have a real need to code something in C++), and part of the problem was a lack of something "real" to code on to practice my newly learned concepts. Example exercises can only take you so far.

Are you restricting yourself to XHTML (which is well-formed), or old-style HTML which can have missing (or unbalanced) tags.

XHTML

Yes, learn Python.

Actually, it doesn't matter so long as it isn't C - anything will do to get you out of your comfort zone.

Actually, do it in C, then do the same thing in another language just for the fun of it. You'll be much more familiar with the problem then.

> In other words, is this worth learning a new language, given that programming is a small 'h' hobby?
You're thinking about it, so I'd say yes.

I like your advice - it seems to me that doing this project in C & Python would be fun, and a fine way to get an idea of the level of difficulty to produce a functional program (with identical functionality) in each language, with the benefit of doing some hands on learning of Python.