Really, what makes you think you can learn the relative merits of C++ from a C++ book? No, learn CS, and CE. Then learn different languages with different cultures behind them. Learn some (non-exhaustive list) LISP/Scheme, Haskell, ML, Python, Perl, Basic, Ada, Erlang, Self, Prolog... at least. Spend some time reading around comparisons, understand the real abstractions, ideas, and histories which forced the design of all those languages. Then come back. If you really do want my opinion, which you don't. As I said in my inital post, it was just a complaint about the fact that I find the whole state of affairs with why certain languages are more popular very depressing:-/ But I'm really interested in programming languages. Really.
I don't expect you to do all this. But I wish more professional programmers would, because it would certainly lead to a world where C++ wasn't the default choice for just about everything:-/ I wish more people would treat languages as a tool, not religion, and stop saying profoundly stupid things like "I don't like rip-off languages.". Do you think I care, or MS, or Sun (if you think Java was one iota original when released, think again)? The right tool for the job, religious issues aside. For some jobs, C# clearly is the right tool. For your bot? If you want it to run on a *nix box, probably not :-/
C#? Sure, it's just a slightly different Java (in all interesting respects the exact same language). And if you think I'm going to get into something as profoundly _boring_ as a MS/*nix/OS debate, think again:-/
