From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: ems@blarg.net (Erik Seaberg) Subject: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal? Date: 1996/07/25 Message-ID: <31f7902d.1141790@news.blarg.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 170102638 references: <01bb73e3.1c6a0060$6bf467ce@dave.iceslimited.com> <1996Jul20.124025.122789@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> organization: J. Random Software newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-07-25T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Mark Eissler writes: > Yes, but since just about everyone else has said something I'd say follow > this path BASIC -> Pascal -> C -> C++ -> JAVA. I find this odd. I'd suggest learning Java (it has garbage collection and simplified semantics, and it's almost impossible to hurt yourself) as a prelude to modern C++ (new-style casts, RTTI, STL), perhaps followed by C if you expect to run into a platform lacking a C++ compiler (or really want to know about the few dark corners that aren't subsets of C++). It seems to me that Pascal offers very little over Java even for teaching - Java is lexically weird because C is, but Pascal is syntactically weird for cheaper parsers, a less sensible tradeoff these days. I suppose my wish list order (with what one at least ought to learn from them): * Scheme (functional algorithms, recursion, closures and continuations as "all you need") * Java (imperative algorithms, classes, polymorphism, containers) * C++ (runtime costs, memory management, real-world utility) * Eiffel (programming by contract, module isolation and cohesion) [perhaps Sather or Ada would work here, I don't know] but then I expect each language I learn to demand I wrap my brain around it for a while, or I won't bother studying it unless using some implementation happens to be expedient.