Grex Agora47 Conference

Item 51: Introductory Programming

Entered by jp2 on Thu Oct 2 01:11:12 2003:

My brother is turning 14 in a few days.  He's pretty good at math.  I think
he should learn the dark art of programming.  When I was his age, every
computer had BASIC and life was easy.  Where should I start the boy now?
124 responses total.
#1 of 124 by mynxcat on Thu Oct 2 01:28:00 2003:

C

#2 of 124 by scott on Thu Oct 2 02:05:36 2003:

Awk.

#3 of 124 by carson on Thu Oct 2 02:10:28 2003:

(does he know Turtle?)

[something about this question reminds me of when my dad tried to give
me the "birds ands bees" talk.  I was 16 at the time and I remember
remarking to him that there still might be time to give the talk to my
little brother, who was 6.]

#4 of 124 by dah on Thu Oct 2 02:21:56 2003:

python.

#5 of 124 by aruba on Thu Oct 2 02:43:12 2003:

8086 Assembler.

#6 of 124 by dah on Thu Oct 2 02:52:32 2003:

Python.

#7 of 124 by other on Thu Oct 2 04:38:08 2003:

Tcl/Tk

#8 of 124 by other on Thu Oct 2 04:39:07 2003:

(Let me clarify.  Introduce him to scripting first, get him hooked, and 
then move him up (down?) to programming.  First one's free, you know.)

#9 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 2 04:47:03 2003:

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#10 of 124 by mynxcat on Thu Oct 2 10:32:58 2003:

Hehe, me, sadist? You hurt me, Dan ;)

Seriously, I started with BASIC, which is basically defunct, and then was
tauht Pascal - total waste. Learnt a bit of C on my own, but never really
worked with it. I think in terms of usefulness, C is right up there. And once
you know C everything else just seems so much simpler.

#11 of 124 by remmers on Thu Oct 2 11:26:12 2003:

<remmers hesitantly suggests Java>

#12 of 124 by dah on Thu Oct 2 11:34:59 2003:

python.

#13 of 124 by mynxcat on Thu Oct 2 12:00:20 2003:

I was going to say Java, but C's better ;)

#14 of 124 by jp2 on Thu Oct 2 12:25:44 2003:

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#15 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 2 13:02:31 2003:

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#16 of 124 by goose on Thu Oct 2 13:56:32 2003:

Snobol60

#17 of 124 by mynxcat on Thu Oct 2 14:01:59 2003:

At 14, learning BASIC would be an insult to his intelligence (I started at
10). If you want to teach systematic programming with little structure, and
absolutely no OOP, try COBOL. (Yes, you can be totally unstructured in COBOL.
Heard of GO TO. I've seen that abused most in COBOL than any other language
Iv'e worked with.)

#18 of 124 by murph on Thu Oct 2 14:41:13 2003:

14 was when I did my first coding, and it was in C.  However, I really liked
the way UMich's CS100 did it: teach logic first, then move up to assembly
(motorola 68k), then up to C.  Unfortunately, lots of people didn't agree,
and they've totally dropped that class.

#19 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 2 14:48:00 2003:

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#20 of 124 by murph on Thu Oct 2 15:16:06 2003:

i might even have my 68k book at home still (I wouldn't be able to check until
Xmas, of course); you're welcome to it, but on your own for hardware. 
(Actually, probably easier to find an emulator somewhere than to bother with
hardware...)  I probably have the text from that class as well.

#21 of 124 by jp2 on Thu Oct 2 15:26:08 2003:

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#22 of 124 by carson on Thu Oct 2 16:03:18 2003:

re #9:  (I wasn't exactly suggesting Turtle.  [does anyone still bother
        with it in this age?]  I should have been more clear:  I already 
        knew Turtle by age 8 and knew Basic by age 9.  thus, the
        implication of my other comment:  if Jamie's brother is
        almost/already 14, doesn't he already know how to program in a  
        simple language by now?)

        ["lisp."  pshaw.]

#23 of 124 by remmers on Thu Oct 2 16:07:08 2003:

I did my first coding in Burroughs 205 machine language, circa 1960.
(Yep, machine language - no assembler available.  And the Burroughs
was a mainframe.)

I'm not as quick as Jamie to dismiss OOP for a first language.

#24 of 124 by jp2 on Thu Oct 2 16:12:15 2003:

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#25 of 124 by jp2 on Thu Oct 2 16:12:58 2003:

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#26 of 124 by mynxcat on Thu Oct 2 16:20:36 2003:

That I highly doubt.

#27 of 124 by tod on Thu Oct 2 16:48:24 2003:

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#28 of 124 by mynxcat on Thu Oct 2 16:53:26 2003:

lol

Now there's a skill that's really useful.

#29 of 124 by albaugh on Thu Oct 2 17:07:50 2003:

To get someone starting out with "programming" enthused, immediate
gratification is needed.  BASIC is certainly good at that, however ancient
its programming constructs are.  "Programming" a web page with html and
including javascript can also provide quick feedback.  I would say to get him
hooked on the idea of software construction, before immersing in a disciplined
environment requiring compilation, packaging, etc.

#30 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 2 17:20:11 2003:

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#31 of 124 by jp2 on Thu Oct 2 17:36:08 2003:

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#32 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 2 17:36:18 2003:

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#33 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 2 17:37:30 2003:

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#34 of 124 by dah on Thu Oct 2 18:02:27 2003:

I recommend python.

#35 of 124 by gull on Thu Oct 2 18:20:29 2003:

Too much structure might be frustrating, but a language with at least
some is important.  I originally learned to program in BASIC and aquired
a fair number of bad habits I had to unlearn.  I think at some point
everyone should have to program in a language like Pascal that enforces
proper structure and strong typing, because when you switch to a
language like C that doesn't have those "guardrails" you can get in
trouble in a hurry if you're sloppy.

#36 of 124 by murph on Thu Oct 2 18:24:13 2003:

Kevin suggests html/javascript...I'd say skip straight over javascript to PHP.
Getting your brother into web-based stuff would have its advantages in
general, though.  For one thing, learning programming for its intrinsic value
requires having an interest in programming's intrinsic value.  Learning to
program so as to make a dynamic webpage allows you to motivate your learning
with something extrinsic.  Your brother might not be interested in learning
to program but might be interested in learning to program for the sake of
making a cool dynamic webpage for one of his existing interests.

#37 of 124 by gull on Thu Oct 2 18:32:03 2003:

Good thought.  PHP is likely to be more engaging than a command-line
script language because you can immediately do things a kid is likely to
find interesting.  Dynamic web content is fun.

#38 of 124 by flem on Thu Oct 2 21:06:38 2003:

I'd recommend an OO language as well, such as Java or (less favored) C++. 
I'd imagine python would do as well, but I'm not familiar enough with it to
recommend.  Reasoning:  in most of these languages, it's pretty easy to write
procedural code, then graduate to OO when you're ready.  I think that starting
with a toy language like Basic (or even worse, Visual Basic) does no one any
favors, since they're addictive.  They are watered down enough taht using them
for any length of time causes your understanding of the scope of what's
possible in a programming language to shrink.  Yes, I say this from
experience:  my day jobs for the last four years or so have involved Visual
Basic, and if I don't supplement work with some serious programming on my own
time, I start to become noticeably dumber.

#39 of 124 by dolgr on Thu Oct 2 22:14:19 2003:

I suggest COBOL. It has clear, English-like syntax and will be very useful
to know when all of these mainframers retire.

#40 of 124 by asddsa on Thu Oct 2 23:26:32 2003:

I recommended Turbo C

#41 of 124 by dah on Fri Oct 3 01:06:12 2003:

Listen, just listen to me.  You once said I was the second most intelligent
person, jp2, on Grex, and that should have some sway.  Python.

#42 of 124 by cross on Fri Oct 3 01:56:26 2003:

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#43 of 124 by mdw on Fri Oct 3 06:06:29 2003:

I think I'd have to know the kid a lot better to make any useful
suggestion.  The best language to learn is whatever the kid is either
most interested in, or that best fits the interests he has.  If he's not
willing to spend a lot of time obsessing about stuff, he's probably not
going to become a real hotshot programmer in any case.

Personally, I'd consider lisp, perl, C, assembler, or python to all be
potentially good choices.  I wouldn't pick java; it creates as much
complexity as it solves, and I'm not at all convinced it's the right
paradigm.  C++ instead of C might be useful if that's where you want to
end up, because yes, if you're switching from C to C++ there's stuff you
have to unlearn.  But I don't think any of these count for anything
against what the kid wants to learn.

#44 of 124 by mynxcat on Fri Oct 3 13:41:32 2003:

COBOL. It'll be like he's taking English.

#45 of 124 by gull on Fri Oct 3 14:51:58 2003:

I've heard that in today's IT job market it's sometimes considered a
negative to have COBOL on your resume.  Any truth to that?

#46 of 124 by dolgr on Fri Oct 3 16:26:05 2003:

Probably. But a 14 year old isnt interested in today's job market.

#47 of 124 by albaugh on Fri Oct 3 17:16:12 2003:

In <= 25 words, what be PHP?

#48 of 124 by gull on Fri Oct 3 17:55:41 2003:

PHP is a Perl-like scripting language designed for embedding in
webpages.  Unlike JavaScript, however, it's executed on the server, not
in the browser.

#49 of 124 by cross on Fri Oct 3 19:30:16 2003:

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#50 of 124 by mynxcat on Fri Oct 3 20:28:01 2003:

It depends on what job you're applying for. Contrary to popular 
belief, COBOL is still pretty much alive. Every industry has COBOL 
embedded somewhere, and it sure doesn't look like it's going to go 
away in the near future. Sure, the front ends will change and become 
more fancy, but hte actual business functionality is still COBOL. And 
what with the fact the old mainframers are going to retire some day, 
you'll need people to actually step up and do their jobs.

#51 of 124 by tod on Fri Oct 3 21:30:51 2003:

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#52 of 124 by cross on Fri Oct 3 21:32:37 2003:

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#53 of 124 by gelinas on Fri Oct 3 22:13:41 2003:

(Interesting, Dan.  I think it belongs in the 'humour' item, though.  Maybe.)

#54 of 124 by cross on Fri Oct 3 23:27:36 2003:

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#55 of 124 by gelinas on Sat Oct 4 01:20:34 2003:

Yeah, it belongs here, too. ;/

#56 of 124 by sholmes on Sat Oct 4 03:58:27 2003:

COBOL was my bread and butter for 3 years ..I liked it ..but then it's not
cool to know program in COBOL anymore :P

#57 of 124 by mdw on Sat Oct 4 06:02:09 2003:

I don't think cobol and "interested in math" go well together.  Cobol
was designed so that you could spell out "difficult" arithmetic so that
your manager could understand it:
        ADD A TO B GIVING C.
This is unlikely to impress most math geeks.  apl might be more
interesting.

Granted, perl has many warts.  It does appear to also be used by
mathematicians for various things, and is in fact a pretty good fit for
the kinds of things many mathematicians do -- in part because it has a
disturbing number of features "borrowed" from lisp and only lightly
disguised.  I don't think perl would necessarily be my first choice, but
I don't think it's an automatically bad choice.

#58 of 124 by jp2 on Sat Oct 4 13:42:24 2003:

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#59 of 124 by dah on Sat Oct 4 14:47:22 2003:

Python.

#60 of 124 by aruba on Sat Oct 4 16:05:24 2003:

I think Perl is a terrible choice for a first language.  He would never be
able to use anything else.

#61 of 124 by asddsa on Sat Oct 4 16:08:10 2003:

re 41 WHERE did he say that?

#62 of 124 by ea on Sat Oct 4 20:53:21 2003:

Lisp or Scheme

#63 of 124 by gull on Sat Oct 4 21:28:32 2003:

Re #60: I've heard people make the same argument about BASIC.

But yeah, Perl probably isn't structured enough.  Perl also has a lot of 
"behind the scenes" default actions, like default parameters, that make 
it really difficult to read other people's code.  That's not good if 
you're trying to learn to program.

#64 of 124 by aruba on Sat Oct 4 21:36:42 2003:

Exactly.  Basic at least has the virtue of being a simple language, even if
it's not very structured.  So there's only so confusing it can get.  Perl
was written for hackers, so it's convoluted and cryptic as all hell.

#65 of 124 by jp2 on Sat Oct 4 23:57:32 2003:

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#66 of 124 by gull on Sun Oct 5 00:07:13 2003:

I don't think sed can really be called a programming language.

#67 of 124 by mcnally on Sun Oct 5 01:22:17 2003:

  I agree that Perl would be a bad idea, and especially agree with the
  second reason cited in #63.  Sometimes it seems like Perl doesn't just
  encourage awful programming style, it practically enforces it..

#68 of 124 by cross on Sun Oct 5 18:26:13 2003:

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#69 of 124 by gull on Sun Oct 5 21:01:43 2003:

FORTRAN isn't a bad choice if you plan to go into a science or math
research field.

#70 of 124 by gull on Sun Oct 5 21:03:13 2003:

Gah. Backtalk is being really flakey today.  I keep having to re-enter
my password over and over.

One reservation I have about languages like FORTRAN, COBOL, or Perl is
that I wonder what you can do with them that a kid will find really
interesting.  None of them have any graphics capability, for example.

#71 of 124 by cross on Sun Oct 5 22:39:22 2003:

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#72 of 124 by mynxcat on Mon Oct 6 16:33:20 2003:

COBOL does have some graphical capability. At least MF Cobol did. I 
was surprised at what cld be done with Cobol when I worked with it. 
Sure it's a little cumbersome, but it's still there. (I remember you 
can make a bell ding with Cobol, this was when we learnt it back in 
college, I know it's not grpahical, but it's still cool)

#73 of 124 by remmers on Mon Oct 6 16:48:52 2003:

putchar('\007');

#74 of 124 by aruba on Mon Oct 6 21:14:16 2003:

The first language I learned, when I was 15, was BASIC on my TRS-80 Color
Computer.  It had some built-in graphics capability, and as long as you
didn't want anything finer than a 32x64 pixel grid, plotting things was very
easy.  So I had a lot of fun, first working through the tutorial book that
came with the computer and then writing stuff on my own.  I wrote games and
function-plot programs, mostly.  At the end of the BASIC tutorial book was
a bit about assembly language, and descriptions of memory addresses you
could poke to get higher-resolution graphics modes.  So eventually I
graduated to writing fancier stuff in BASIC and then Assembler.

#75 of 124 by gull on Tue Oct 7 13:20:32 2003:

That's sort of the tragectory I followed, though I ended up playing with
several computers...an XT clone and a VIC-20 at home, and an Apple //e
at school.  The //e was my introduction to assembly language.  It had a
built-in machine language monitor and mini-assembler.

#76 of 124 by scott on Tue Oct 7 13:38:22 2003:

Maybe the answer is BASIC on some crufty little early 80's home computer,
then.  ;)

#77 of 124 by mdw on Tue Oct 7 19:38:01 2003:

If you are rating languages by "what they do" perl has got to be near
the top of any rational list.  The biggest advantage of a popular
kitchen-sink language with excellent "import" tools is that if you can
imagine any plausible interface, somebody has probably already done it.

Anybody got some rotten tomatoes?

#78 of 124 by cross on Tue Oct 7 23:55:27 2003:

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#79 of 124 by janc on Wed Oct 8 19:43:59 2003:

I'm currently working on contract that requires me to write a lot of Java code
in a J2EE environment.  This is the first time I've worked with Java.

  string.length()  vs.     array.length

  long             vs.     Long

  javax.rmi.PortableRemoteObject.narrow()

  InputStream, ByteArrayStream, FileInputStream, FilterInputStream,
  BufferedInputStream, DataInputStream, PushbackInputStream, ObjectInput
  Stream, PipedInputStream, SequenceInputStream, Reader, BufferedReader,
  LineNumberReader, CharArrayReader, FilterReader, PushbackReader,
  InputStreamReader, PipedReader, StringReader

I say, hit it with a stick.

Objects are supposed to hide complexity.  But the Java library objects
glory in introducing huge amounts of needless complexity, none of which
you can ignore.  It probably doesn't help that I'm fixing code written by
programmers of dubious quality, who declare variables "long" or "Long" at
random.

This shouldn't be anyone's first language.

Since we are still trying to get this person interested in programming, it
should be something you can easily get some cool results with.  Probably
something like PHP or python, but I've never used either language so I
don't really know.

Learning object oriented languages early is probably a good idea - except
it so rarely seems to work.  Many of the people I've seen who started with
object oriented programming are still worse at it than I am.  Procedural
thinking dressed up in minimal object oriented dressing.

#80 of 124 by jp2 on Wed Oct 8 19:46:15 2003:

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#81 of 124 by cross on Wed Oct 8 20:37:44 2003:

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#82 of 124 by jp2 on Wed Oct 8 23:01:40 2003:

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#83 of 124 by cross on Wed Oct 8 23:04:15 2003:

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#84 of 124 by scott on Wed Oct 8 23:33:16 2003:

#82, rephrased slightly:  "Yeah, that's what I was going to say, but you beat
me to it!".     ;)

#85 of 124 by janc on Thu Oct 9 00:59:21 2003:

To expand on one issue a bit, "long" and "Long" are both long integers.  The
difference, as I understand it, is that "long" is a primitive type, while
"Long" is a "long" encapsulated in an object.  The most obvious difference
is that a "Long" can be "null".  "Longs" also have some handy methods attached
to them.  I have two problems with all this.  First problem is with the
original authors of the program I am working on who declare variables and
parameters either as "long" or "Long" depending on their mood at the moment.
Second problem is with the language.  If "a" is a "long" and "z" is a "Long"
then we have the following

    ILLEGAL             CORRECT

    a= z;               a= z.longValue();

    z= a;               z= new Long(a);

    if (z < 0)          if (z.longValue() < 0)
                    or  if (z < new Long(0))

If you do any of the things at the left, the compiler will tell you it
cannot convert a java.lang.Long into a Long or vice versa.  It won't just
shut and do it.  If you want to support two views of a long, primitive type
or object, that's fine, but make it seamless so you can switch views
seamlessly instead of peppering the code with syntactic garbage functions
like Long.longValue().

Perl is certainly an ill-begotten nightmare of a language, but I've
developed a lot of respect for it.  Whatever else you can say about it,
it never get's in the programmer's way.  Everything that should be easy
is easy.  If you're thinking "there must be an easier way", there is.
If it's true that if a new programmer starts with Perl, then he'll never
be able to learn anything else, is that a problem with Perl, or with
everything else?

#86 of 124 by gull on Thu Oct 9 02:13:07 2003:

Re #79: A year or so before I left Michigan Tech switched from teaching 
freshman CS majors C to teaching them Java.  That struck me at the time 
as a terrible mistake, but I don't know how it's worked out in practice.

Re #85: Make them learn a fascist language like Pascal first, so they 
suffer like I did.  Then when they learn Perl they'll APPRECIATE it, 
damn it! ;>

Of course, for the first few days someone should stand behind them and 
apply a mild electric shock whenever they try to debug a program without 
using either the -w flag or "use warnings;".

#87 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 9 04:30:58 2003:

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#88 of 124 by jp2 on Thu Oct 9 12:19:57 2003:

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#89 of 124 by jep on Thu Oct 9 13:17:15 2003:

Pascal is fine for illustrating algorithms and programming 
principles.   Lots of good programmers started out learning Pascal in 
college.

Jamie doesn't want to teach his brother programming principles, 
though.  He wants to get him interested in learning how to make simple 
programs that do something.  Jamie's brother probably envisions himself 
writing an improved version of Doom as a starting project, then moving 
into virtual reality games when he has a few weeks of experience.  He 
needs something he can start with and get results he can see reliably, 
and which results are entertaining to a 14 year old boy.  I don't know 
of anything like that myself.  In a few years I'll be looking for it 
too, so I'm interested in what Jamie comes up with for his brother.

#90 of 124 by gull on Thu Oct 9 13:26:17 2003:

Re #87: I was mostly joking about "suffering" with Pascal.  I used
QuickPascal (the Microsoft clone of Turbo Pascal) for quite a while, and
in my current job I've done some programming in Borland Delphi.  Pascal
isn't a bad language, you can do useful work with it, and it does teach
good habits.

Re #89: A friend of mine recommends BlitzBASIC.  It's a BASIC variant
that's tailored for game programming.  The webpage is here:
http://www.blitzbasic.com/

#91 of 124 by remmers on Thu Oct 9 13:45:44 2003:

I "hesitantly" suggested Java a number of responses earlier,
mainly because it's widely used and implements the object-oriented
paradigm, which I do think is appropriate for beginners.  My first
and only serious brush with Java involved teaching a course in it
for beginning programmers last semester.  Thought it went pretty
smoothly.  With careful planning and guidance by the instructor, the
complexity can be tamed.  I haven't had experience with Java beyond
what's necessary to teach a beginning course though and so haven't
run into the frustrations that Jan's experiencing all that much.
On balance he's probably right -- it's not the best language for
beginners to study on their own, although with appropriate guidance
from an instructor, it can work.

One aspect that hasn't been addressed so far in the discussion of
language choice is the "social factor".  I assume that Jamie's
brother isn't a hermit who plans to hole up in his room with a
language textbook and a computer, never to see the light of day
for the next couple of years while he makes himself into a guru.
If he's studying on his own, he'd probably benefit more from
a language that's got lots of online support (e.g. tutorials,
programming examples) and that his more computer-literate friends
might actually have an interest in too.  From that point of view,
Lisp and Ada tend to lose (fine languages though they may be),
and Perl and Python are better choices, warts and all.

(If intrinsic merits of the language were the sole criterion, I'd
be pushing Simula-67, the original OOP language.)

#92 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 9 16:24:47 2003:

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#93 of 124 by remmers on Thu Oct 9 16:33:31 2003:

(I humbly retort that there are any number of skills that are best
learned with a guidance of a teacher, and that this does not diminish
in the least their appropriateness for students.)

#94 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 9 17:48:43 2003:

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#95 of 124 by mdw on Thu Oct 9 18:27:27 2003:

I wasn't greatly impressed with Java's string handling; it had all of
the same complexity as Jan complains about with integers, and more.  I
think people learning Java are going to be learning more about the
complexity and resulting annoyance factor than they will about any
advantages of OOP.  I think perl would actually make a better learning
environment for those advantages, although I might choose python, C++,
or perhaps even Lisp first.

#96 of 124 by cross on Thu Oct 9 21:08:31 2003:

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#97 of 124 by tod on Thu Oct 9 21:09:13 2003:

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#98 of 124 by cross on Fri Oct 10 03:27:33 2003:

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#99 of 124 by dah on Fri Oct 10 05:12:34 2003:

Kerl.

#100 of 124 by mdw on Fri Oct 10 09:52:24 2003:

C++ has more *visible* complexity.  But individual things implemented in
C++ can be less complicated than the same stuff in Java, because Java
adds gratuitous complexity and provides less flexibility.

I don't know that "bad features" are necessarily the absolute evil Dan
Cross paints.  To some extent, it's *useful* to have a language that
lets you do the wrong thing, because then you learn more of what's
happening and why it's important.  If you use a language that makes it
impossible to make certain mistakes, you won't necessarily learn not to
make that mistake, and you certainly won't learn how to recognize the
mistake or fix it.  You'll never learn, in Java, how to track down a
memory allocation error.  And nothing in Java will prepare you for the
absolute horror of an array overrun that wipes out random unrelated
memory in "neighboring" memory.  Of course this adds to the complexity
and potentially the stress of the person learning.  That can be either
good or bad depending on the student.  But if that's where the student
wants to wind up, it's probably better to address such pitfalls early,
and teach methods to recognize and avoid such, than to toss it all in at
the end and hope the student doesn't notice.

#101 of 124 by scott on Fri Oct 10 13:52:16 2003:

I actually liked learning C (which was mixed with learning vi, which was not
fun at all), since as a language it's pretty close to the hardware.  Same as
BASIC on a little 80's computer, actually.  

As computer language and practice became more abstracted from the hardware
I enjoyed it less, and that's a big part of my software burnout.

If the kid in question is more of a hardware type I'd really recommend C, and
to fool around with interfacing or something.  For all the web "programmers"
who got laid off, hardware geeks came out a lot better.

#102 of 124 by gull on Fri Oct 10 14:02:04 2003:

Re #95: I remember the main realization I came away with in my C++ class
was that compilers are often broken, and people will go to great lengths
to get them to work anyway.

#103 of 124 by flem on Fri Oct 10 16:38:38 2003:

Heh, I remember frustration with broken compilers for C++ too.  They've come
a long way since then, and I'm pretty happy with modern gcc versions.  

I think that while C++ has a ton of complexity, it's possible to deal with
it like an iceberg, leaving 90% of the crap out of sight until you really need
it.  The library works decently for simple tasks, with some warts.  My worst
complaint with C++ is that when something goes wrong, it can be
mind-crushingly difficult to figure out what's wrong, even for small programs.

I don't think there's much benefit to teaching object-oriented programming
to students right off the bat.  The benefits of OOP are almost all pretty
arcane, and a beginning programmer might memorize the arguments, but he/she
won't really understand them without having some experience of procedural
programming to put it in context.

#104 of 124 by janc on Fri Oct 10 19:37:11 2003:

C is still the language I'm happiest programming in.

#105 of 124 by cross on Fri Oct 10 19:37:53 2003:

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#106 of 124 by drew on Fri Oct 10 21:12:36 2003:

Forth.

#107 of 124 by aruba on Sat Oct 11 01:44:51 2003:

I programmed in C++ professionally too.  I don't quite agree with cross, but
I do think it's better to learn C before C++.  I think the real benefits of
object oriented programming don't manifest themselves in small projects;
they really show up in large projects with lots of programmers.  So to a kid
writing on his own, C++ would just look like so much beaurocracy, with no
real upside.

#108 of 124 by albaugh on Tue Oct 14 16:36:51 2003:

This may be a bad analogy, but consider this:  No one drives to work on a
tricycle.  But to get a child interested in "motion on wheels", we don't hand
him keys to a car or motorcycle, or give him a 2-wheeler (bicycle):  We give
him a tricycle, so that he can obtain skills in balance, steering, braking,
etc.  So don't worry about having the teenager start in on a programming
language that he'll be required to master in a job, get him "hooked" by
something fairly easy to pick up, and - I maintain - something that provides
quick feedback.  Thus I still recommend BASIC or html & javascript.

#109 of 124 by remmers on Tue Oct 14 16:58:24 2003:

I will confess that my own path to computer science (which commenced
after I got a PhD in mathematics) began with Basic (original Kemeny
version out of Dartmouth, late 1960s).  At that point, I'd had a little
experience with programming in connection with a computer operator
summer job that I had while in college.  But that had been years
earlier, with the machine language of a computer that nobody used
anymore.  I was a professional mathematician but a novice programmer.

I had some math problems whose solutions I wanted to automate.  Vintage
Basic enabled me to do that without mastering a lot of language
bureaucracy first.  Later I came to see the value of more sophisticated
langauge features, but then I just wanted to get something working with
a minimum of fuss and bother.  The simplicity and quick feedback of
Basic facilitated that.

So I'm inclined to agree with Albaugh.

#110 of 124 by tod on Tue Oct 14 17:23:11 2003:

This response has been erased.


#111 of 124 by gull on Tue Oct 14 17:28:14 2003:

I think it depends partly on what the kid wants to do.  If you try to teach
him a language that doesn't do anything he finds interesting, he's going to
lose interest quickly.

#112 of 124 by keesan on Wed Oct 15 15:04:48 2003:

A few people with poor balance commute on tricycles.

#113 of 124 by albaugh on Sat Oct 18 06:01:34 2003:

And some of us still program in BASIC!!!  :-)

#114 of 124 by asddsa on Sun Oct 19 04:15:39 2003:

re 113 wtf??

#115 of 124 by gull on Tue Oct 21 14:15:02 2003:

I mostly stopped programming in BASIC when I reached puberty. ;>

#116 of 124 by kit on Tue Oct 21 20:38:00 2003:

I had at one point an old (and i mean old) conputer, don't ask what it was
called but it was the one after commodore (a something) it used a tape player
to run it's programs. It only worked in basic so I inadvertentley learn't it,
that was when I was about 7 or 8. Shame i forgot it all but i didn't reliase
what it was. Damm!.

#117 of 124 by albaugh on Wed Oct 22 16:54:27 2003:

Sounds like one of them TI "hook it up to your TV" units...

#118 of 124 by bhoward on Thu Oct 23 01:32:22 2003:

I quite like ruby these days.  Wish it had been around when I was learning
object-oriented programming.

#119 of 124 by asddsa on Fri Oct 24 01:17:54 2003:

Are you related to Brian Howard, Bruce?

#120 of 124 by bhoward on Fri Oct 24 05:32:45 2003:

Our paths have crossed from time to time :-)

(Hey Bri, how's Mom doing?  Tell her I send my love...)

#121 of 124 by asddsa on Sat Oct 25 05:21:08 2003:

No way, you're brothers?  Where does Jamie fit in?

#122 of 124 by dcat on Thu Nov 27 04:43:04 2003:

speaking as one who has taken introductory programming classes at three
different colleges in two languages, I wouldn't recommend Java to anyone for
anything, least of all as a first language.  As others have said, it's just
simply too complicated and intorduces too many things which are unnecessary
to learning the fundamentals of how to program.  C++ wasn't much better.

Personally, actually, I like LISP.  LISP is pretty; I wish I had time to learn
more of it.  If he's more interested in web stuff, I'd say go with PHP.

#123 of 124 by willcome on Thu Nov 27 07:54:46 2003:

True story:  Napster's distribution system is modelled after Chinese
whore-rings.

#124 of 124 by mrbrett on Wed Dec 10 23:03:14 2003:

I am also new to programing and I am thinking of going with java.

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