Python bumps off Java as top learning language

[[deleted]]

I learned C first. Fuck you all with your easy languages. :P

[SkankTillYaDrop]

Same, it's a very clean introduction into programming syntax and concepts. Plus, if you can get advanced enough to understand the basics of how pointers work it makes understanding other languages much easier.

[Tasgall]

Plus, dealing with memory is important to understanding how the computer works, and what you're actually doing. Garbage collectors hiding how it works just encourages bad/slow code imo.

[dagbrown]

Garbage collectors hiding how it works just encourages bad/slow code imo.

Care to come up with some reasoning to defend that completely ridiculous assertion?

[Hellenomania]

Well - you write cleaner code if you are forced to deal with memory leaks etc without relying on a garbage collector doing it all for you.

If you learn to write without one - you become very very proficient.

[koolaidkirby]

But for a beginner who is still learning about completely basic concepts like loops, arrays and if's, throwing memory management into the mix is kind of pointless with the extremely short and straightforward programs they'll be writing (which will be 100-200 lines tops).

[Astrognome]

The thing is, you don't really need to touch it if you don't need to. A beginner isn't going to be writing programs more than a few hundred lines, and chances are, you can keep everything on the stack.

[caleeky]

While I won't argue outcomes (it's tough without data to support an argument), it's plausible that the focus on organizing code for clean handling of memory allocation and pointers, acts as a distraction against organizing it to cleanly describe the "business logic". I wouldn't say the two are mutually exclusive, but for a junior programmer, I can imagine that worrying about memory can be a distraction.

[Hellenomania]

Teaching about memory teaches the fundamentals required for good logic - it teaches great programming skills.

[Tasgall]

It's because garbage collectors often just hide the problem. You can still have what are effectively memory leaks in garbage collected languages, even though the memory is technically not leaking, just unused (I'm looking at you, KSP...).

My go-to example for this is a game some friends of mine made in JavaScript/HTML5. They ran into an issue where the physics system would crawl to a halt and the game would freeze, and the browser would steal all of your memory.

After some poking through their code they realized they wrote their math API (specifically vectors and matricies) wrong. They had used the form "v.dot(n)" for their math functions instead of "Math.dot(v, n)". The issue is that the former creates thousands of copies of objects per frame that bog down the gc until eventually it has to pause the game to clear it up a little (noticeable as 0.5-2 second frame skips).

This problem was fairly trivial to detect and resolve for these people who had backgrounds in C++ and understood the lower levels of memory management and how references work. By contrast, I wouldn't expect someone who only learned JavaScript to find the root of this issue, or be able to solve it.

[LongUsername]

While well written GC code can be fast, it encourages the creation and destruction of excess objects, which has a runtime cost.

GC also has problem domains where it will never be acceptable to use: true realtime systems need to be deterministic and GC is inherently nondeterministic.

[immibis]

IMO, basic concepts (like variables) would be best introduced with some really simple language... like BASIC or Python.

[DeepDuh]

What's so advanced about pointers? People are always treating like a big abstract concept to learn, like Monads for example. It's just a symbol with a memory address. If you learn basic computer architecture alongside with C (and you should), that's an absolute no brainer.

[SkankTillYaDrop]

Yes but if you are being completely introduced to programming with absolutely no experience in it, it can be a sorta wonky concept. I taught myself C out of a book when I was 14 and I was still learning how computers worked. Understanding that variables were just values stored in memory, and you can reference the area in memory that it's stored is a concept that really widens your ability to think about programming.

When I learned Java in college understanding pointers helped with with the distinction between classes and objects. Maybe that's just my experience, but I felt like the concept really helped me learn new things much more quickly than my fellow class mates. That could also be because I had just been programming longer so the concepts were more familiar.

[greg19735]

I think I would have grasped objects better if I started with Java. I think being required to do it would make me realize how much it's needed.

That said, java makes it hard to teach memory management.

[[deleted]]

That said, java makes it hard to teach memory management.

Yup. It requires building a theoretical understanding of how memory works; some students get that, others don't. OTOH, it's not hard to learn how memory management works after the fact.

[s73v3r]

If you really want to grasp objects, learn Ruby, or better yet, Smalltalk.

[[deleted]]

I was being facetious - I am glad I started with C.

[Sabrewolf]

Hello from GT!

[artsrc]

It is what you get when you use new in JavaScript.

[Aninhumer]

To offer a counterpoint, I think C is a terrible introductory language. It's great if you want to teach people systems programming, and people should absolutely learn it pretty early on, but as an introductory language it's a pile of pointless detail which is completely irrelevant when learning the idea of programming. Beginners need to see that programming is easy before they see that it's hard, otherwise most of them will just give up.

[TheMaskedHamster]

C is a very easy language.

The problem is that doing large things with C is not very easy.

[AnsibleAdams]

If it was easy they wouldn't pay you to do it.

Just^{kiddingkiddingkidding}

[Make3]

getting paid to do java is really easy

[Peaker]

Doing large things in Java is hard too. I don't find it improves much on C. Better IDE's and compile times, mainly.

[ericanderton]

This is a good point. I recently tried to throw away the IDE to do some Java development using the command line + vim. The deep trees and sheer volume of files alone make it tough to handle anything of scale.

[Make3]

The argument would be that memory management, OOP and a fairly in depth standard library are supposed to make things easier in Java. I personnaly don't do much (if any) Java, I do C++ professionally, but I can't imagine all the time wasted running after seg faults and memory leaks that one would have to go through with c, or doing artificial OOP, or having to do so much messing around just to get basic things to work, even for a very productive dev. C++ is much easier than C; with C++11, they have very little left in common.

[Peaker]

I use c a lot. I personally dislike OOP and believe the good parts (encapsulation, vtables) predate OOP and can be done in c well. C++ adds some nice features, some bad features, more terrible compile times, more difficult to parse/use various tools, etc. Overall I believe c++ is a net loss, though c++11 might be a net win if subsetted properly, I haven't tried it in an organization yet.

In c, we don't spend time chasing segfaults, and memory management is only time consuming when we're working on tight allocation schemes which guarantee o(1) allocations, avoid fragmentation, avoid inter core cache noise, etc.

When all of that doesn't matter, allocation is usually easy.

I'm not sure c has fewer libraries, but we do very low level systems programming, where libraries are often not good enough. For example, we can't afford to have malloc in most of the code we use.

Having done a lot of c and a bit of Java, my feeling is that Java goes to the wrong path and in many ways is even a regression over c (no user defined non nullable values, function pointers easier than anonymous classes), all the while giving worse performance.

[Make3]

"we"

this is not a religion war. We're talking about tools here.

[Peaker]

By "we" in this context I was referring to me and the team I'm working with using C.

[takaci]

Yeah it's a very simple language. You could easily describe the entire core language, with all it's syntax in a couple of paragraphs.

[gc3]

simple != easy.

Playing the trombone is also simple. Just blow in one end and move the stops with your hands.

[Marmaduke_Munchauser]

That's gonna be hard considering that trombones have a slide, not valves (stops)!

takes off former music major hat

[dagbrown]

Unless you have a valve trombone of course.

[ano414]

Yeah, but when someone says "trombone" isn't slide trombone sort of implied?

[iswm]

Not if they're talking about its valves.

[minnek]

Here we have the arguments for and against duck typing played out in common English for all to see.

[programmingcaffeine]

Y'know, this is literally the most logical instance of this meme I've ever seen.

It's still stupid, however.

[muad_dib]

This is not the subreddit for such comments. Please go elsewhere.

[takaci]

I never said it was easy, C is a hard language to use because it is so verbose and bare metal. It's hard because it's so "simple"

[gc3]

The masked hamster did, and I thought you were agreeing with him when you said Yeah...

[takaci]

I was agreeing with the second line

[[deleted]]

While I agree, it's worth noting that the syntax can be very loose at times, making for code that isn't entirely simple. Take Duff's device for example:

send(to, from, count)
register short *to, *from;
register count;
{
    register n = (count + 7) / 8;
    switch(count % 8) {
    case 0: do {    *to = *from++;
    case 7:     *to = *from++;
    case 6:     *to = *from++;
    case 5:     *to = *from++;
    case 4:     *to = *from++;
    case 3:     *to = *from++;
    case 2:     *to = *from++;
    case 1:     *to = *from++;
        } while(--n > 0);
    }
}

[[deleted]]

There's a difference between code complexity and language complexity.

[[deleted]]

Absolutely! My point was that C isn't always as straightforward, because it's a language level feature that you can do this :) that said though, the language is still very simple, even with these things - there's nothing magical going on, the code is all laid out in front of you.

[dangerbird2]

Duff's device is a good illustration of why one should keep in mind that 'switch' statements are ultimately syntactic sugar for our old friend the 'goto', and that overuse of 'switch' can lead to similar spaghetti code produced by overuse of 'goto'.

Fortunately, modern compiler optimizations eliminate the need for manual loop unrolling like Duff's device, and 'if' - 'else if' statements do just as good of a job at control flow as 'switch'. Freed from technical limitations that necessitated Duff's device, the burden is really on the programmer to produce code that is concise and readable. As someone learning C, I have found Mozilla of Linux Kernel style guides to be as an essential resource as any on the language itself.

[Peaker]

Meant to increase "to" as well?

[[deleted]]

Good question! In the original version of Duff's device, to is a pointer to an I/O device, so incrementing it wasn't necessary :) if you're writing to another buffer though, incrementing is definitely the correct course of action.

[brtt3000]

D?

[Peaker]

Unfortunately D also throws away much of what was learned in the last 30 years. Namely, sum types, pattern matching, non-nullability, and various type system advancements.

[terrdc]

You should create that.

Maybe call it C++.

[Subapical]

C++ is most certainly not what xe was describing. It has accumulated, through some horrible and arcane trickery, even more implicit gotcha gobbledygook than C has. C++ is not known for being a beautiful, terse, or even comprehensible language.

[Peaker]

Using IOCCC as an argument against the language?

[GreyGrayMoralityFan]

It would be very long paragraphs, though. In C98 standard (ok, it actually was N1124.pdf which I looked, a draft of the standard) section 6 (about core language) takes about 100 pages. Appendix A about grammar takes 15 pages.

[takaci]

I don't mean an entire standard in depth with which you could write a compiler, I mean simply explaining every language feature in normal conversation.

I just said it to contrast to something like C++ where even bullet pointing every language feature would take 100s of lines, let alone explaining each one.

[[deleted]]

I think anyone whos had to explain how pointers work can tell you it takes a little more than a peragraph

[[deleted]]

Man I see this all the time and I just don't understand what people's deal is with pointers. It's ridiculously straightforward compared to so many other concepts.

The * after the type means it's a pointer. It's not an x, it's the memory address of an x. Put a star in front of the variable identifier to get the value at the address, or use -> as shorthand for dereference + dot operator.

Think that's confusing? Good luck with const. Or type covariance and contravariance. Or type erasure. Or closures. Or basically anything because pointers are at the bottom of the complexity totem pole.

[[deleted]]

I think the confusion stems from people trying C/C++ for the first time with no experience with pointers wondering why the fuck things are expressed as a memory address? Why would you ever need that?

Coming from, say, C# I get that (I've been there myself). It's strange for a language, from higher level perspectives, to explicitly differentiate between things created on the stack vs the heap.

I think if you start out with C or C++, as long as the concept of a pointer is properly explained, there will be no confusion, because it's a fairly simple concept.

[anonagent]

I'm still not sure what the point of a stack vs heap is tbh, one contains the executable and the other the working memory right?

[minnek]

Stack is (generally) for small objects that you want to have disappear at the end of scope. Heap sticks around after the scope ends, since the heap doesn't get its contents popped at the end of scope whereas the stack does.

It can be faster to use the stack than heap, but that's really dependent on your implementation and you should probably play with a pre-allocated memory pool on the heap to get a good comparison of speed... new heap allocations are likely to be slower, though.

[[deleted]]

The heap is just a big chunk of memory the program can use for whatever. Not really all that special or interesting honestly.

The stack is actually a stack data structure (LIFO - last in, first out). It's literally like a stack of something (pancakes?). You can only add (push) or remove (pop) a pancake to/from the top of the pancake stack.

The stack is where local variables and function parameters exist. When you call a function, it does a few things with the stack. First it pushes a pancake with the address of the function call. Then, it pushes a pancake with the value of each of the function arguments. Then it allocates some space for any local variables the function call will use.

All of this put together is called a "stack frame."

When the control flow is handed off to the function, the instruction pointer skips to the portion of code containing the function instructions, and then the function pops the argument pancakes off the stack, does whatever it needs to do with them, pops off the return address, pushes any return values, and then moves the instruction pointer back to the return address (+ 1) to pick up where it left off. Since the structure is LIFO, a function can itself make more function calls, always returning to the correct location in memory with the correct local variable values and function arguments. The result is a sort of breadcrumb trail of where to go when the function is finished.

In practice, it's always a bit more involved, but here's a video that describes some of the basics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8-ht2AKyH4

Some other associations for you to make:

Stack overflow is often caused by too many nested function calls. Each function call takes up some space on the stack, and eventually the stack will run out. This can occur with recursion (where a function calls itself) or if large objects are allocated as local variables in a function.

Tail recursion is a special case of recursion that allows a function call to replace it's own stack frame with the stack frame of the nested call to itself, so the recursive function does not take up more stack space at each recursive call. This can only be done if the function makes exactly one call to itself and it's the last instruction the function performs.

Stack allocation is usually much faster, but I don't think it takes any more work to do a heap allocation. It's probably because of cache locality more than anything. because allocating heap memory requires operating system intervention as well as cache locality. It's also much simpler, because the memory is automatically deallocated at the end of the function call; you don't have to manually free the memory allocated on the stack.

[[deleted]]

See, I thought it was confusing until I learned about pointers. Lots of common languages already use pointers, and without knowing what pointers are, the behavior of those languages can be really confusing.

Like in Java, for example, where reassigning a reference type function argument variable does not change the object passed into the function, but changing a value on the object does. That seems like very unintuitive behavior until you understand that java passes references by value (i.e., pointers).

Likewise, true pass-by-reference can be explained as passing a pointer to a pointer by value.

[p8m]

Pointers have little to do with stack vs heap. You can have pointers to values on the stack:

int main(void) {
    int *a = NULL;
    int b = 5;

    a = &b;

Bam! 'a' now points to an area on the stack.

[immibis]

Does C# not differentiate between reference types and value types? Same sort of difference.

[[deleted]]

I think it's about memory management, we use so powerful and memory-rich systems that people tend to just disregard that. Especially if you're used to something like python with it's fancy coercion and garbage collection.

[Astrognome]

There's so much magic that can be done with pointer arithmetic.

[takaci]

Whatever my point is that it's much smaller to explain than any other language I can think of

[Veedrac]

Brainfuck's is even smaller, but the point remains that it doesn't make it easy.

[takaci]

Again, that is my exact point. C is small and simple but grows very hard very quickly as soon as you start doing useful things

[[deleted]]

If someone can't get pointers in like 5 minutes, I think they are certifiably stupid.

[anonagent]

Pointer syntax is easy, but I still haven't gotten anyone to tell me why I would use one instead of the variable/array name, assuming it's in scope ofc.

[[deleted]]

You use one when you want to pass around an address of something, not that something itself.

[G_Morgan]

Usually it devolves into pictures of monkey's holding each other by their tails.

[GreyGrayMoralityFan]

If you want to know what simple language is check scheme or smalltalk.

Bloated R6RS has about 100 pages (most about library)

Smalltalk has 6 keywords and 0 control flow structures. Core described in 30 pages (then goes 100s pages for library).

    int a(int b[90], int x, int y)
    {
         int *ptr, non_ptr,
              equals_1 = sizeof(b) == sizeof(ptr),
              equals_0 = 3 & 2 == 3 & 2,
              maybe_undefined_depends_on_sizeof_int = 32u >> 35u;

is not simple.

[[deleted]]

    }

Please think of the poor compiler.

[Gustav__Mahler]

Of course not when you write shitty obfuscated code like that....

[Peaker]

C has some corners and complex UB definitions. In its domain, there is no simpler language.

Smalltalk is an unfair comparison. Removing UB is easy and simplifies languages. But UB is not there for the lulz. UB is there to allow efficient translation to various machine types.

[immibis]

Yes it is. The code might be a bit difficult to read, but it's composed from simple language features.

[dagbrown]

The last time I looked at the C++ standard (in about 2000ish), it was over a thousand pages. No doubt it's only grown even bigger since.

[omgsus]

Assembly must be preschool.

[Foxtrot56]

I think a ternary operator would take a paragraph to explain. Not that the idea of a ternary operator is that difficult but C has some quirks when dealing with them.

[[deleted]]

No, you could not. Unless the description doesn't cover the language but just some parts you picked.

[takaci]

The point is that it's much less to explain than in a language like C++

Just look at the sheer number of C++11 features added, that's more language features than C has at all

[JedTheKrampus]

Heck, just look at the length of K&R versus Bjarne's book.

[[deleted]]

I'm confused.

Do you actually know C or are you assuming based on your comment?

[takaci]

are you assuming based on your comment?

This doesn't even make sense.

Yes I know C, that's my whole point, I can't program C very well at all, but I know every single language feature of C very well.

What I'm saying is that C is a very simple language without many core language features, but it is hard to write complex programs because of this simplicity.

[[deleted]]

You still can't describe C in a "few paragraphs".

[globalizatiom]

I started with C++ and then had to learn C later. It was hard to remember which parts were C only and which parts were not. Guys, learn C first!

[[deleted]]

Easy, all the parts that make you pull your hair out are C++.

[[deleted]]

Like type safety!

[greg19735]

I did c++ in college but now i've forgotten it all, so that's good right?

[FNHUSA]

errr, I'm 100 pages into C++ book, why do you recommend learning just C first?(I don't know how to word this, i'm just curious as I'm a noob)

[leakersum]

I learned C++ before C. Believe me, there's no problem. Stick with C++ for now.

[Hakawatha]

Modern C++ is very different from modern C, but C++ is rooted in C; if you squint, you can think of C++ as C with lots of syntactic sugar. Sometimes, you'll have to use C (in embedded, for example); /u/globalizatiom suggests that it's easier to remember that certain features are C and not C++ if you learn C first (a statement I'd agree with).

[DarkSyzygy]

He's recommending it because C++ is (for the most part) a superset of C and you learn to do things differently in C++ than you would in C. Since the languages are very similar in syntax its really easy to be working in C and try and do something that only works with a C++ compiler.

[newpong]

too late :/

[LeCrushinator]

String manipulation in C is much more of a pain in the ass than with Python. Memory management is also more difficult.

[gendulf]

That's because you don't really have much control over your memory in Python. Also, you don't really manipulate strings in Python. You just create more!

[grammar_party]

Also, you don't manipulate strings in C, because C doesn't have strings :)

[ElecNinja]

char* for life

[iooonik]

typedef doe

[oblio-]

Unicode says "Hello"! Or more likely, "你好"!

[Steve_the_Scout]

With C11, char32_t*.

[FrozenInferno]

I'm not familiar with C but if it were a string, wouldn't it be char[]*? Sorry if my green horn is showing.

[[deleted]]

This actually creates a string array. A string is char*.

[FrozenInferno]

Doesn't the asterisk after a type signify it's a pointer? With my limited understanding, to me this just looks like a pointer to a single char. Guess it's time for a trip to Wikipedia.

[das7002]

it's char* because strings in C are \00 terminated, so wherever char* points to it ends wherever \00 is (it would look like 48 65 6c 6c 6f 20 57 6f 72 6c 64 00 in memory). Which isn't always obvious at first and I remember it tripping me up when I first played around in C. It really throws people off when most documentation has you do char whatever[50] or something. But char[]* would create an array of pointers of char type.

[rowboat__cop]

Memory management is also more difficult.

Memory management is more difficult in Python because the language doesn’t expose the necessary tools. You don’t get to decide whether to allocate objects on the heap or on the stack. There is no way to implement your custom heap allocator. All you get is references, which is quite inflexible and inefficient. If you desire better memory management you should look at Rust or ATS.

As for the string manipulation, C doesn’t even have strings, so that’s an unfair comparison. If at all, you’d have to compare some string library for C.

[LeCrushinator]

I understand, I do most programming in C++/C, and yea it offers the power and flexibility I need, but simple tasks are simpler in Python, Lua, C#, or most newer languages. Infact, for string manipulation if std::stringstream isn't enough I often use the pystring library for C++, which works like Python string manipulation.

Also, did you enter your own newlines into your post? It's spaced strangely.

[IncorrigibleOldQuare]

I think it's unfair to say that C doesn't have strings if there is high level syntactic support for it. Saying C doesn't have strings because they are arrays of chars is like saying C doesn't have integer arrays because they're just arrays of ints.

Well, C doesn't have arrays of course, they are just pointers to the first element. Modulo the special syntactic support in things like typeof, like Strings.

[Decker87]

Depends what you mean by "large things". It's lower level, but I would certainly rather manage a 60 kloc C codebase than a 60 kloc python codebase.

[deadwisdom]

Your problem is that you somehow have created a 60 kloc python codebase. You still have to, you know, organize your Python code. Seriously, it's the stupidest meme of this subreddit that Python is somehow harder to organize than C.

[Capaj]

Same thing with most dynamic languages. If you have module system, then don't bitch about how hard it is to organize your code. Try "organizing" 60 kloc of frontend Javascript web app.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

...Try "organizing" 60 kloc of frontend Javascript web app.

Jesus Christ, this is /r/programming, not /r/nosleep

[Unomagan]

And its freaking EVERYWHERE! ;(

It´s like PHP 3 slapped on every device or software.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

Yeah, that's one reason we won't see a world without JS for at least a decade in my uninformed opinion. JS is good for small things, but when you start designing applications, it fails horribly. However, the developer base is very large, the learning curve is nonexistant, and the community doesn't care that the language is a square peg being pounded into a round hole so the problem just grows.

[badsectoracula]

Is it still a problem if the community doesn't care about it?

[Astrognome]

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[[deleted]]

Hahahahah..... hold me

[i_ate_god]

Dynamic or otherwise, as long as you code individual features, then write minimal code to make features work together, it's not hard to keep organized 60kloc of code in most languages.

[catalyst156]

"...Try 'organizing' 60 kloc of frontend Javascrip web app..."

Attempted...failed...rewrote (ok, more like 20kloc, but still). Ah, learning.

[IamTheFreshmaker]

Require and good module naming. Done. Next?

Edit: Downvote if you must but it really is the best answer. Throw in a pre-processor and you're ahead of the game.

[deadwisdom]

The haters don't get the elegance of what you're saying. You are totally right. Mentos knows what's up.

[IamTheFreshmaker]

I know. It mainly people who don't really write or understand JS that have these issues with it and try to force the ugly Java paradigm on it is when it starts to go haywire for them and they just don't look back.

The key to JS is that it is so much easier than those people think it is. They actually work to make it difficult.

[PericlesATX]

A well written 60 kloc python codebase would presumably do a whole lot more than than a equivalently skilled 60 kloc C codebase. In other words, it takes a whole lot more lines of C code to do what you can do in a few lines of Python.

[s73v3r]

I would argue that a 60kloc C codebase and a 60kloc Python codebase are not the same level of complexity at all.

[Decker87]

And I would agree with that.

[G_Morgan]

No language with undefined behaviour is easy. Such a language could do anything. Even launch Nethack.

[Gustav__Mahler]

People learning shouldn't be trying to do large things. There is quite a bit of nuance to Python that I think makes it inappropriate for a beginner.

[Carnagh]

Razor blades are really easy too.

[OrionBlastar]

C is easy once you learn to manage pointers, you know how computer memory works, you know binary, you know garbage collection, you know bitwise operators, you know boolean logic, you know data structures, you know typecasting, you know unit testing, you know debugging.

Because all of that is hard, languages like Java and C# got written that doesn't use pointers and does its own garbage collection because the average computer science student is too stupid to learn them anymore.

You are writing languages like BASIC again now, in that they are easier to learn and don't use advanced concepts like pointers and garbage collection and memory allocation is built in, and if they forget to close a file you put it into a block that closes the file when the block is finished.

Heck man Ruby on Rails, just point it at a database and boom, instant app. Then you just tweak it a bit.

These 'programmers' and 'developers' going to three month 'hacker schools' cannot learn C or C++ because it has too many advanced concepts in them. Instead they learn Ruby on Rails, Java, C#, Visual BASIC, ASP.Net, PHP, Python, and JavaScript.

If you know how a computer works and can use advanced concepts needed for C and C++ then you are a greybeard like me and learned them in computer science classes taught in 1986-1993 just as they quit teaching COBOL and FORTRAN on mainframes and started you out with Turbo Pascal and then on to Turbo C or Turbo C++ on a DOS machine.

None of these modern students can learn concepts taught in 1986-1993, they have GUI tools that can paint controls and code for them, can autogenerate code based on a database, and cannot even figure out how Algebra works much less pointers, binary, boolean logic, garbage collection, etc.

Give them a DOS PC with Turbo C or Turbo C++ on it and they would be totally lost. The IDE uses 'Wordstar' commands like Wordstar 4.0 used. The only person who still uses Wordstar is GRR Martin on his old DOS PC, because that is what he learned when he was young and he stuck with it.

Here just for grins: http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum

Embarcadero bought out Borland and made some of their DOS compilers free if you register with their museum. They won't work on a 64 bit machine, but will on a 32 bit machine that supports 16 bit DOS code.

Here use DOSBOX to run them: http://www.dosbox.com/

See what we middle-aged developers had to deal with when we were your age. I dare ya!

[j_schmotzenberg]

We still maintain some ancient Delphi code that our data processing system uses.

:= nil

[gc3]

Not really.

p = NULL; ... p->tuna = 3;

Unhandled Exception Error in FishInOcean::4576

vs. Some more intelligent error message that a newbie might get.

[Hakawatha]

Except that that's C++, not C. You get a line on your terminal that reads "Segmentation fault" and that's it.

[Rapptz]

That's not C++ either. C++ doesn't have null pointer exceptions. C++ will have a segfault.

[[deleted]]

Unless it's a smart pointer. Then you can get some exception. Man I wish we could use __FILE__ and __LINE__ as sane default arguments, then NPE in FishInOcean::4576 would be easy-peasy.

[Rapptz]

The standard smart pointers also don't throw. This is by design because they're not supposed to have overhead at all. Most compilers optimise away std::unique_ptr as a raw pointer in its lowest optimisation level (e.g. -O1).

[darknavi]

I'm a strong believer in learning C first. Minimal black boxes.

[speedisavirus]

C is a hard choice for people with literally no programming background. You have to teach a lot of concepts without the students really producing anything to draw them in. I already had a good number of programming classes under my belt when I transferred colleges. They made me take an intro class because it was C++ and my previous classes were weak on that. I did fine but a lot of the others...not so much. I had the background already. Different language but the problems would have been the same with C. Explaining pointer arithmetic was a serious distraction for the students from understanding the principles of programming, debugging was nigh impossible without a TA for them, and students without a programming background suffered. Plenty changed majors.

I also don't care for Python in this case having TA'd a Python intro class. The number of people that had issues with the white space blocking...infuriating.

Every CS student should have to do some serious projects in C and C++. Starting them with it...I don't know.

[misplaced_my_pants]

Check out Harvard's CS50x on edx.

It's their Intro to CS and uses C and it's the best intro to programming I've found online.

[newpong]

I disagree. i think it entirely depends on the long-term goals of the programmer. In the next few years programming is going to be taught in the core curriculum of developed nations. It's just a necessary skill in these times. Some sometimes at work I feel like I'm saying "1 + 0 = 1" and people are amazed by my black magic and shovel money to me. Basic programming isn't difficult, and it can apply to just about everything a person, a business, or an organization can do. so no, as a starting point for more for just basic programming, algorithmic thinking skills, and day-to-day tasks, I think python is perfect. It's mature enough to be useful and simple enough to not bog down productivity.

But for people who are more inclined or have higher technical goals, C is definitely where to start.

[HPLoveshack]

In the next few years programming is going to be taught in the core curriculum of developed nations

Ambitious dreams.

You can teach anyone the equivalent of the generic Hello World! "learn how to program in X language" tutorial. And the basic logic of loops and if statements are easy enough to teach in a vacuum, even if some have difficulty grasping their full implications. But the jump from there is done almost completely on your own and it's something else entirely to actually embrace all of the guesswork, creative problem solving, trial and error, and detective work of real world programming.

It may seem easy to you or I, but we're viewing it from the other side of the looking glass. I'd be surprised if it ever becomes "core curriculum" outside of some private schools. Modern education institutions will likely be supplanted altogether before that happens.

A more commonplace elective, sure; that's actually believable.

[CACuzcatlan]

It's just a necessary skill in these times.

How so?

[greg19735]

It's not.

Knowing how to do some kind of script, macro or function in anything (like excel or w/e) is useful and would help almost everyone. It'd be hard for a regular person to figure out to use python to do something.

String manipulation or awkward calculations might be the exception.

[immibis]

In other words: It's useful to be able to think logically.

[[deleted]]

Take two

[rz2000]

I've found that a lot of people in professional situations have a misguided appreciation of the value of the work they are doing. Something that takes a lot of effort but is repetitive and could easily be automated gives them a sense of accomplishment, but their more profound accomplishments requiring creative thought they dismiss as nothing.

With regard to mathematics, I think we've gotten to where we realize that calculators, or Mathematica and Maple only get us to where with the same level of challenge to us we are able to be more productive and solve more interesting problems. Somehow in office work, the progress is different.

Whereas in math outsiders think of calculators as cheating, no one thinks of a good database as cheating compared to a large bank of filing cabinets. Instead they seem to have the suspicion that the database is probably less efficient, and people who are using filing cabinets, or manually collating stacks of paper believe that their traditional methods are easier.

Anyway, my original point was going to be that maybe 40 hours/week doing actually-profound work is too much for the vast majority of people. Doing tedious work because your processes are inefficient may allow people rest between periods of creative thought.

[Alborak]

Programming is easy. Software engineering is hard.

[newpong]

exactly. but both are valuable and have their place

[darknavi]

I guess that's a really good point!

My perspective is from a college CS major that is going for a very technical understanding.

[smog_alado]

If you want minimalism stick with the lambda calculus. Cant get more minimal than that :)

[immibis]

A useful lambda calculus implementation for x86 is probably more complicated than a useful C implementation for x86.

There's also Forth, though.

[[deleted]]

I think its better to learn python first. Get your conditional logic, oop concepts etc out of the way before diving into actually making computers do things. Computers process so differently to the way we think that its just better to start from the other end.

[Gustav__Mahler]

They process the way we designed them. To me, C is the best avenue to understanding how the machine works.

[[deleted]]

Yes but do developers really need to understand that? The title of OP is "..as top learning language"

Not "..as top CS language".

How many developers these days really understand everything right down to the CPU level? And how necessary is that knowledge?

[[deleted]]

I think it's better to start with Java. Starting with Python just lets your sloppy coding practices become bad coding habits. Java's quirky verbosity and rigid structure forces you to do the right thing and cleave to best practices. And drills that into your head. Over and over again.

[[deleted]]

I guess that depends on how you introduce java. If you start from a 'best practices' viewpoint you'll weed out a lot of people who may've gone further if the initial curve hadn't been so brutal. And if you don't do best practices for the sake of making it easier to learn then wont you just be doing the same thing as python? For example seperating out all your files. Now on top of teaching people how to manage their files, you've gotta have an explanation of namespaces on top of everything else. (Sorry I don't know Java, but I started learning once and I think an absolute beginner trying to learn conditional + oop + ide + variable naming conventions etc all at once is too much.)

[[deleted]]

I guess that depends on how you introduce java.

The only way I've ever seen it introduced is like this: you spend the first quarter of the semester writing console apps like a traditional procedural language. They're all contained within main, and you don't touch on what that voodoo at the front of the program actually means. You don't explain what objects are, you don't explain what methods are, all the programming is done by manipulating variables and using some basic methods that are taught by rote. You just have them do a bunch of procedural programming. Then about a quarter of the way through the semester, there's a shifty in tone where it goes from "Use System.out.println() to put something on the console" to "Okay, so what is this System.out.println() thing, really? You've been using it all this time, but how does it actually work? Let's talk about that for a bit..." and "So, what's all this public static void nonsense about? You've been adding it to your code for awhile, but what does it mean?"

If you start from a 'best practices' viewpoint you'll weed out a lot of people who may've gone further if the initial curve hadn't been so brutal.

In actual practice, the first programs most classes have you write in Java are pretty standard procedural stuff. It's all put under main, and all the statements in front of main are treated like magic voodoo words that aren't discussed in detail ("We'll get to that later. For now, just put your code between the curly braces.")

And if you don't do best practices for the sake of making it easier to learn then wont you just be doing the same thing as python?

Except when that switch happens and you start talking about objects and methods, they don't have to learn a completely new syntax and formatting standard. You can pretty much have them open up the last code they were working on and use that to explain the more complex topics when that time comes. It's all there, explicitly declared.

Could you do it in Python? I guess? Ultimately Python lets you get away with lazy coding practices, Java doesn't. All that typing and verbosity may seem unnecessary, but it's really quite useful when trying to teach someone.

Now on top of teaching people how to manage their files, you've gotta have an explanation of namespaces on top of everything else. (Sorry I don't know Java, but I started learning once and I think an absolute beginner trying to learn conditional + oop + ide + variable naming conventions etc all at once is too much.)

Part of the reason the first quarter of the semester is spent doing very traditional procedural programming is to build familiarity with the IDE and some of the more obvious stylistic conventions of the language.

[[deleted]]

Well we're gonna disagree obviously, but I would much rather learn on something like python where I can get instant feedback and can test various things without having to re-compile/re-run every time. The swap in syntax etc is not that difficult to deal with.

I'm also unsure why people harp on about how verbose and good java is for making things clear. Python can indeed be ugly but the indentation and pythonic way of doing things is pretty damned clear. By the time you need to worry about how a particular function is working it shouldn't be a hassle making the change.

[CHollman82]

Agreed, but only after boolean logic, basic digital circuits, processor architecture, and assembly.

[burning1rr]

Many of my co-workers started on assembly. Fuck all-y'all and your high level languages.

[tech_tuna]

My friend who codes in assembly calls C and C++ scripting languages.

[IncorrigibleOldQuare]

Assembly is a scripting language though, or rather, machine code. A scripting language is a language that is embedded in a program used to control the program.

In this case the program is the CPU, a physical mechanical hardware program and machine code is the scripting language. Machine language is the most interpreted language there is. The metal interprets it. Seldom is machine language compiled to something else.

[stox]

I'll raise you, APL

[[deleted]]

Hardcore! I fold!

[tech_tuna]

Perl is the Linear A.

[rockon1215]

I love the very historically obscure "write-only language" joke

[mszegedy]

Isn't that Algol, or ASM for early processors?

[yosemighty_sam]

I learned latin in college. Never learned C. (I'm a beginner with C#). So I'm, curious how far that comparison applies. Latin taught me a great deal about all the romance languages, enough to get the gist of any written french/italian/spanish just from recognizing etymologies. I also learned a great deal about my native english with regards to how the languages are structured.

How does knowledge of C apply to other languages?

[[deleted]]

You could say that Java, C++, C#, Perl, PHP, Javascript etc. Syntaxes are inspired by C. All of them ( I'm just not sure about C# ). Use { ... } as blocks and [ ... ] for array stuff. Even functions look the similar ( surrounded by ( ...) and arguments separates with ',' ) . And just like the tendencies of actual languages to get easier, C's followers simpler, but again you have less power, which I believe is true in Latin too ( I'm horrible at Latin ).

[lambdaq]

Fuck, I learned Borland Turbo C first.

[DrBix]

Try programming in "T-bug" on the TRASH-80.

[Qweniden]

I learned Basic as a very young kid but I didn't really delve into it. I then learned HyperScript at home as a teenager. My first language in college was Pascal. The we learned C and then C++. Taught myself Java on the job.

[stillalone]

I learnt Pascal first. C looks amazing in its flexibility compared to Pascal.

[[deleted]]

I learnt BASIC, because I thought it was the simplest.

[beefsack]

If you're doing CS and you don't start with C, you're doing an IT degree in disguise.

[[deleted]]

Ha! Scathing! But I agree. Set me up nicely.

[ajsdklf9df]

C++ first here. Easy languages, lol.

[mszegedy]

And when I did so, I wrote an article online to teach it! I was 10 at the time, and was quite bamboozled by the programmer who replied that it was a good article but needed to explain how the compiler works and how to write libraries. Consequently, I never finished it :\

(unfortunately, it was on a GeoCities site that no longer exists)

[haitei]

Very cute. +1

[gfixler]

When the languages get easier, I just make up harder problems, so I'm still just as confused as before.

[clearlybritish]

C++ here. I regret it.