Choices . . .

I've had VS6 sitting on my hard drive for years now (and even reinstalled it through a crash or two). Aside from using it to generate a bit of a creepy feeling now and then I've never really used it.

Ruby, on the other hand, I have absolutely no experience with at all. I would very much like to become fluent in it but it's just not the right tool for the jobs I do most often (real-time image processing and interpreted languages usually don't mix).

To choose masochism or not? I think I'll leave Ruby until I know a bit more about building compilers (or until there's a Ruby to native code compiler out there). C/C++ it is.

The last time I sat down to learn C was on my Dad's brand new IBM PC/XT. I'd spent the last year with my C64 learning BASIC. My Dad (an EE who does embedded systems stuff) loaned me his copy of K&R C which I read cover to cover twice before getting any keyboard time. I don't think I spent more than three weeks with C before going back to BASIC. I still think C is an ugly language - C++ templates just make it moreso. I recently heard someone say that C is a 'write-only' language. That quote pretty much sums up my feelings about it.

With that in mind, I'm either going to learn to love C or spend three very frustrated months . . .