On 24 November 2010 13:55, Kenneth Gober <kgo...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 9:55 AM, James Hozier <guitars...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> ... I read online that the first programming language one learns could be >> crucial to the person's future programming skills and habits that become >> ported to other programming languages they learn later on, and I don't want >> to develop any bad habits and practices. I've decided to choose C as my >> first language, for various >> personal reasons (mostly to audit code for security). >> > > C is a decent first language to learn; but I think that starting with C will > focus your attention on the mechanics of how things happen at a very > fundamental level, which is all well and good if you plan to write operating > system kernels or device drivers (or audit them for security). and starting > with C will help you later learn all the C-derived languages that came > after: C++, Java, C#, etc. > > but if you intend to write applications, you may be better served by > starting with a language that focuses your attention on the structure of > your programs and the relationship between their parts. once you have a > good foundation about the structure and meaning of programs, it's a > relatively simple matter to learn any programming language, including C and > the C-derived languages, as well as languages that are not remotely C-like. > > since you've indicated that you are interested in a 'first' language, I must > assume you plan to learn other languages later. as a result, I strongly > recommend that you start with the book "Structure and Interpretation of > Computer Programs" (available online at > http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html, or you can buy a > paper copy if you prefer, for example from Amazon: > http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Engineering/ dp/0262011530). > this book will give you an excellent foundation on programming in general > (and the Scheme programming language in specific). >
Are you insane ? Recommending SICP to a guy that just started programming and CS in general ? Have in mind that not everyone is a MIT grad. Learning lisp/scheme as ones first language is sweet, but it just doesn't happen in 2010, that makes me said, but it's the truth. Before flaming me, I'm quite fond of scheme and elisp. Stick with Marco's books and you should be fine. I also recommend the following, disregard the name, it isn't all that: http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Programming-Peter-van-Linden/dp/0131774298 Another advice is, make yourself small goals like "try to write a wc(1) program", try to write a strtok(3) function and stuff like that. Also have in mind that learning C can be quite painful.
