Re: Programming first steps.
This may be somewhat contraversal, but I wouldn't start with C or C++.
If you want to learn to program, start with something with bounds
checking and other safety guards. To be a serious programmer, you will
have to learn C and C++, but learning a programming language is only
a small part of learning to program.
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,
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
(GNAT). Java is a current favorite, but it's a little weak on the Free side and
forces you to object orientate everything. You will, however, be able to easily
find books on Pascal and Java, whereas Ada books are harder to find.
I've heard about Python and LISP as starting languages, but others will have to
write their recomendations.
jwz (major Netscape author, upstream of xscrensaver) writes (in his article
"java sucks":
"When I first started using Java, it felt like an old friend: like finally I was
back using a real object system, before the blights of C (the PDP-11 assembler
that thinks it's a language) and C++ (the PDP-11 assembler that thinks it's an
object system) took over the world. [...]
Today, I program in C.
I think C is a pretty crummy language. I would like to write the same kinds of
programs in a better language."
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