Francois Paul <francois / bagasie.com> wrote: > > can anyone point me in the right direction? also if you think it is a > better idea to start programming in Java rather than Ruby, please let me > know why. Here's one reason I'd *strongly* urge not using Java as a first language: lack of support for closures. IMO closures are as fundamental a code-structuring concept as functions and procedures are, and living without them feels vaguely like using GOSUBs in BASIC dialects that didn't have proper procedure support. Learning java as a first languyage might lead her to the idea that closures are some sort of esoteric construct only of interest to language junkies. martin