What is the difference between Computational Biology & Bioinformatics?

Which is better to learn for biology: Perl or Python, C or C++?

• It's the summer before school and I thought that I should learn something new and useful. I read somewhere that to get a good grasp for bioinformatics, you should learn one programming language, C or C++, and one scripting language, Perl or Python. I'm not entirely sure about the differences between computational biology and bioinformatics, but I'm going to assume the answer would be similar for both. I'm not very familiar with computer languages, I know the names but that's about it. I got stuck at deciding between Perl and Python, and both sides seem to be extremely passionate in their viewpoint. I haven't even looked at C and C++. In your opinion which two out of the four are better for a biology student, in terms of job prospects and their applications in modelling biological systems and analyzing molecular and genomic data? Can I learn them well for free (using online tutorials and downloads)? Also which are easier to learn and run? I'm not too worried about the difficulty of a language, I will persevere if I know that it is the 'right' one for me to learn. I'm not in IT and I really don't want to learn something and realize that it's unnecessary or that there's a faster, more accepted way to do things in biology. Having said that, I generally don't mind taking a slightly longer or harder route if it pays off and means that I will be able to apply concepts better in biology/produce work of better quality. I'm specializing in molecular biology and genetics, and I took an introduction to programming course in high school where we learned Visual Basic (I was pretty good at it because I learned quickly and enjoyed it). I'd appreciate information from anyone (I don't know much about these languages really), especially from someone in computational biology/bioinformatics. Thank you!

• Answer:

  It's C++.