Programming neophyte looking for a language to start with. Or, what language should I learn to complete these tasks?

monkishies — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:24:00 -0800

What programming language should a neophyte start with to organize his life? Yes, another one of those questions. But I have two specific tasks that I'd like to accomplish and this makes choosing a language really hard for me. Especially since i'm a complete n00bler. I'm a complete virgin to programming other than the little bit of BASIC that was taught to me in High School ages ago. But I REALLY want to learn a programming language. One that I can use as a foundation but more importantly a tool for doing things on/to/with my internet connected PC.

I have two specific tasks that I'd like to start out with for my first programs that I believe will be simple enough for a beginner like me.

1. Organize my horribly disorganized library
---Read through a folder filled with books in .pdf/.chm/.djvu format
---rename the files with their isbn number (queried from somewhere like amazon)
---fill in the "title","subject","author","category","keywords", and "comments" sections under right click on file Properties->Summary (also queried from amazon or the like)
---compress the file
---create a subject/category folder and place the compressed file there

2. Organize ~20mb worth of bookmarks (in multiple .html files)
---Check for duplicate bookmarks in this collection of .html files
----Use the pages content to scrape tag words then input them in the right click on bookmark Properties->"keyword" section and if possible also fill in the "description" area. Delicious to me would be a last resort as it's become a mess with people using tags that often look like gibberish and probably only make sense to their user and/or their own piece of code.

It'd also be nice for these apps to be cross platform (Windows and Linux) but that's an afterthought really.

Now, I know this might sound like a tall order for a complete neophyte but I believe the first program that I've outlined above could be easy enough to complete for someone like me.

So, what should it be? Perl, Python, C, C++, something else? Maybe someone out there knows of a *free ware/beggar ware/Open Source* program that does what I desperately need to get done? Please impart your collective wisdom unto me, AskMeFi! I beg you!

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Programming neophyte looking for a language to start with. Or, what language should I learn to complete these tasks?