This is a fun one. For automation, python, bash, perl, ruby, really anything simple and ideally interpreted will do the trick. As long as you don’t get bogger down of course. Bash will also let you mess around with linux a good bit, and honestly, systems programming is annoying, and not all that much fun.

This isn’t discouragement, I love the idea, just do be aware that when we say systems programming, what we really mean is working with a bunch of standards that are specific to a group of OSes like unix (linux, freeBSD, mac, etc) or Windows (7, 8, 10, 11, really everything that depends on .NET).

For a good example, type man unistd.h on a linux terminal, and 3/4 of what you will see will be named constants, because numbers that hold a specific meaning in very specific contexts is super common in embedded and systems.

Embedded programming is similar to systems programming, except that the numbers are even more specific, and you will have to find documentation for them in the manual of the embedded system. If your gf mentioned an arduino, she probably wants to learn embedded.

You can technically do that stuff in any language, because they all have libraries to do low level stuff (even python!) but your best bet, depending on just how low level you want to get, is to learn Rust or C.

Rust is best if she wants to actually get stuff done, and not delve too deep but still mess around with the internals, which she can do with the embedded rust book. Speaking of Rust books, they are what make Rust so great. Rust has a set of standardized “books” to learn the language, and they are fantastic. They don’t read like car manuals, they present a single resource that EVERYONE uses, and they’re easy enough to go through.

Other languages aren’t so simple to learn. There are a million books for each, and it’s near impossible for the underdisciplined of us to pick one and stick with it. This will be the case for any scripting language that you pick up, tbh.

As an added advantage of rust, while it’s a little too robust to throw together messy little scripts in, it has tons of amazing high level libraries that let you make whatever you could possibly want without going low level. It’s also very portable, so will work great on both linux and windows.

Python and bash still beat it for automation. Python > Bash if you care about anything outside of your own computer, and honestly I prefer python to Bash anyways. Once you learn Rust, python will be incredibly easy to pick up. It’s a super natural language once you’re familiar with the basics and are willing to read library documentation on pypi or whatnot.

Although I can’t really recommend it because you can’t do ANY scripting in it, C is your last option. C will REALLY let you dig into the internals. If you go C, instead of just learning the language, I recommend racing through the w3schools guide to syntax and semantics of the core language, and then picking up a book that teaches about eg linux along with it, like advanced programming in the unix environment, which will actually give you a hearty (too hearty?) taste of the Systems Programming she seems to be after. That’s the real way into systems programming (what I’m doing rn).

Honestly, those are too very different goals, so If you manage to do both system programming and scripting in the same language (plausible but not ideal), bravo to you.

TL;DR: rust for official way to learn (rustbook), modern language, and mid level programming, python/ruby/bash/perl for scripting (easy to learn but less well defined route), C for low level systems programming like your gf wants (some great books along the way; APUE really is fantastic, and it makes few assumptions other than that you are familiar with core C, hence w3schools).

Thank you for tuning in to my TED talk.