free programming language

[Brian Borowski]

I agree with Jim.  Many of the basic programmers I know, have never been
able to move on comfortably even to C, and have often therefore, remained
with basic, and all the bad ideas that it brings along, besides, most
implementations of that language aren't free, anyway, so why bother if
there are so many other good free implementations of better languages out
there.

You really need good documentation like a book, or some of the excellent
documentation that accompanies some of the free distributions of
programming languages.

You could start with java, if your into object oriented languages, and want
to structure your life that way, and get the book Exploring Java, from
O'rielly; java is available for Windows as well as all the better Os's.

You could just learn C, Cygnus for Win or the wonderful gnu stuff for
linux, and get a good book; check out empowermentzone.

You could get perl, there is ActiveState's perl for Win, and of course the
default stuff that comes with linux; and the book Learning Perl from
O'reilly, or again, empowermentzone has a few.

There's so much choice, but the real thing is, you've got to have some
commitment and initiative to see the thing through; this is really the
important part of the whole thing.

In my opinion, C is the ultimate, I like perl and java, (java when I need
to), but as someone else has said, the technique, not the language is
important.  The skills like algorithm design and its implementation are
what you really have to learn, then you use the language to express your
ideas in something the machine can understand and work with.

Brian Borowski


On Mon, 11 Mar 2002 jwantz at hpcc2.hpcc.noaa.gov wrote:

> Hi Greg,
> I definitely disagree.  BASIC teaches bad programming habits like
> FORTRAN i.e. non-structured programming.  The problem with C is not the
> language, but that most people learning C start by reading Kernighan and
> Richie.  I have been programming in C since 1986 but it took me almost
> half of that time to unlearn bad habits I picked up from BASIC and
> FORTRAN.  Now, one could make a case for Pascal as your first language
> but I really think BASIC is a bad idea.  Sure, you might be able to
> accomplish certain tasks easier in BASIC than in C, but the time you
> spend in learning C will make you a much better programmer in the long
> run.
>      Jim Wantz
> On Sun, 10 Mar 2002, Gregory Nowak wrote:
>
> > Since we're on opinions, in my opinion c or c++ are not good languages to begin with. I believe from personal experience that it is best to start with something like basic, and then move on to languages like c or c++ where the concepts you learned from BASIC will help you advance in higher languages faster.
> > Greg
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 10, 2002 at 06:48:35PM -0500, jwantz at hpcc2.hpcc.noaa.gov wrote:
> > > Hi Alex,
> > > While BASIC sounds like a good starting language in my opinion it is
> > > not.  First, it is very non-standard (no two BASIC interpreters or
> > > compilers are alike).  Second, file i/o in most BASICs is really rather
> > > painful.  As far as I know, the only BASIC widely used in WINDOWS is
> > > Visual BASIC which is hardly free!
> > >
> > >      Jim Wantz
> > > n Sun, 10 Mar 2002, Alex Snow wrote:
> > >
> > > > I would use, and want to learn, basic, if there was a free Compiler and/or
> > > > IDE for basic under winblows.
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Gregory Nowak" <gnowak1 at uic.edu>
> > > > To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> > > > Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 2:56 PM
> > > > Subject: Re: free programming language
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > How about BASIC?
> > > > > Greg
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sun, Mar 10, 2002 at 01:25:38PM -0500, Alex Snow wrote:
> > > > > > Hi.
> > > > > > I am looking for a programming language for windows that is both free
> > > > and easy to learn for a beginning programmer.  Does such a language exist?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > ---
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Speakup mailing list
> > > > > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > > > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Speakup mailing list
> > > > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>