languages

despite starting to learn c++. I'm having doubts.
I could go and look on wikipedia for hours about programming languages, but having not done much in any language. It's all shit to me. I don't understand it.
So.
If any anon is kinda enough.
I wanna get started using a language. Any. A good functional language.
but why use it, and why not use C++? I hear alot about lisp.
icba reading SICP unless it's really worth it.

Big post. Expecting tl;dr from trolls.

Cheers /prog/

>>16
C/C++ are fucking awesome languages
Where do you get off acting like C and C++ are the same?

if you want essentially direct translation into native assembly,
If you want this and you're not doing embedded programming, you're an idiot.

which is a necessity for OS-level shit.
No.

And when you're that close to the metal on current consumer systems (x86/x64), adding fancy features like first-class functions and dynamic typing just slow shit down to the point where the system is unusable.
Again, no. Why would that happen? Any dynamic language useful for systems programming will provide a way to deal with dynamic typing (think ``optional type declarations''). And how in the world would first-class functions cause a problem?

Maybe eventually we'll see some more interesting architectures come out which cater more nicely to non-imperative programming styles,
Special hardware is not required. Maybe in 1970 they did that, but modern compilation techniques obviate the need for this. It might be beneficial to design hardware with an eye towards GC, but there is absolutly no problem with compiling a dynamic language on a modern CPU.