After reading everything on grc.com about the 2001 DoS and DDoS attacks against them, its renewed my interest in programming. While I really love writing code in PHP that is accessible to everyone with a web browser, there are many limitations to web-based coding. It simply wasnt designed to do some of the things I want it to do.
One of the big projects Ive been working on, and which Ive probably mentioned before, is my IRC chat bot. Ive written several bots in mIRC using their proprietary scripting language, which was very simple, since they handle all of the IRC connection issues, and simply provide functions to send / receive messages and other commands. Unfortunately, since this is based on a Windows application, it must be left running on a desktop, connected to my DSL at home. Not only is this far less stable than Id like, but it also subjects the bot to incredible lag at times, particularly when Im uploading something else. To fix both, I really need to write a bot in something that can run directly on my server.
In this situation, learning something like Perl would seem to be the most appropriate, but I really have no desire at all (absolutely zero) to learn it. Im not really sure why, but I just have this odd bias against Perl. I guess Ive just never given it a chance, but it always seems to find some way to annoy me and not work.
That still leaves some of the more popular languages. I still hate C++, but oddly dont mind C#. I have no experience with Java, but Ive heard that it is very similar to C#. Java also has the added benefit of being cross-platform, so I have the potential ability to continue to run my IRC bot on my Linux server, while still having the ability to run client-side applications, just as in all the other major languages (C++, C#, Visual Basic, Delphi, you name it).
The only problem with that scenario is that I have to use Java. Its always had a reputation as a horrible resource hog (which I think is well deserved and earned), so I have a justified hatred towards it, as opposed to Perl, which I just hate because its different and strange.
So what do you guys recommend? Whats your favorite language? Are there any you know of that would meet all my requirements? Are there any that are similar enough to PHP to reduce the learning curve? Other suggestions?