Re: Programming first steps.
On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 03:27:29AM +0200, David Starner wrote:
> Pascal is traditional, but is seriously a toy language with at least a dozen
> different groups of compiler-specific extensions. Ada is my personal favorite,
Sure but if you pick one compiler you can get some work done. It's quite
a good language to learn with. I still do some code in Borland's Object
Pascal (aka Delphi) and enjoy it. Safer than C++ and with a decent
syntax too!
> but doesn't do garbage collection (which may be okay, considering you'll have to
> learn it sometime, and unlike bounds checking, GC can encourage laxness in
> memory handling.) It also has a nice Free compiler with superior error messages
Ada is a good choice. Not very fashionable but the compiler can find
things at compile time that would be hard to find at runtime, which is
very helpful when you're just learning.
(Does GNAT still have the switch to enforce source code style checks? Fun!)
> (GNAT). Java is a current favorite, but it's a little weak on the Free side and
Java is just a fad :-| Somebody will find an application for it any
decade now.
My university CS department stopped teaching Ada and started teaching Java
to the first years a few years ago. Very tragic.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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