[buug] I've been getting 2 of Everything, why?

[Jon McClintock]

On Tue, Aug 13, 2002 at 11:08:45AM -0700, f.johan.beisser wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, Aaron T Porter wrote:
> > 	Oh geez, this thread starts with Linux vs BSD and now we're
> > getting into Emacs! Are we trying to cover all the standard jihad in one
> > fell swoop?
> 
> emacs, vi, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Linux, GNU/Linux, bash, zsh, tcsh,
> ksh, C, C++, perl, python, bourne..
> 
> hold on, there's more.. uh..

Prolog, forth, modula-42 (look at cvsup someday :), microkernels, Java,
C# (shudder), Visual Basic (twitch), Intel, Apple, Motorola... I could
go on forever. :)

But seriously, as far as learning programming languages goes, it's a
wide open field. At this point, you probably don't know what you want to
be doing with programming languages, you just find them cool. I'd say
learn C (or learn C++, but ignore all the fru-fru crap, like templates
and shit like that). Learn C because it'll provide you a good foundation
on which to build on.

Once you've got a solid handle on C, branch out to other things. Learn a
scripting language (Perl, Python, etc). Learn an OO language, but do it
to learn about OO, not to learn about that language.

A programming language is a toolkit, not a dogma. Good software
engineers know this, and know enough about the various languages to
understand their limitations, and to know what tasks are best
implemented in which kind of language.

My last piece of advice is to pick up a data structures book, in
whatever language you're going to start out with. Learn about data
structures, and what they're used for. You may change your preferred
programming language dozens of times, but you will still make use of a
good understanding of data structures.

-Jon