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

Claude Rubinson cmsclaud at arches.uga.edu
Tue Aug 13 12:27:01 PDT 2002


On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, Mark Handley wrote:

> I guess it depends how much time you've got, and what you want to do.
- snip -
> I've lost track of the number of languages I've programmed in over the
> years - probably around 30 or so.  The vast majority of my work has
> been in C and C++ - I've written about 50K lines of C++ in the last
> year.  But in an ideal world, I definitely wouldn't start with C
> (you'll learn too many bad habits), and C++ is too crufty to make a
> good starting point (the learning curve is pretty steep), although
> it's really good for developing large systems once you've got more
> experience.  You'll end up programming in C at some stage anyway, but
> try to avoid starting there if you have a choice - you'll spend all
> your time thinking about why it core-dumped, rather than about the
> higher level concepts of the problem you were trying to solve.

I'm wondering if age should factor into the decision as well.  Is C really
appropriate as an introduction to programming for a 14-year old?  My
younger brother is that age and I can't imagine him having the attention
span to learn C.  Wouldn't something like Python allow someone that age
get something of substance up and running more quickly?  If he decides
that he actually likes programming, he can always go back and learn the
fundamentals later.

Claude





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