part about good things about learning C... But the final paragraph
should really be the take-home message, I think. :)
David
On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 09:49:56AM -0500, Barry Schatz wrote:
>I don't think people should actually USE C. I just think programmers
>would vastly benefit from wrapping their minds around how the computer
>works at a low level before going out into the world. That said, there's
>a lot of critical software out there written in C that can't be replaced
>in any other language.
>
>Java avoids some of the pitfalls of C, but I think it makes things too
>easy for a first language. I also find it unbearably slow at times. I
>refuse to use OO.o because I could get my work done in the time I lose
>waiting for it to start up. But there are places where Java is the right
>tool to use, and avoiding Java just because it's Java is a mistake.
>
>The big problem with Ruby is that it's still not mature enough for
>"enterprise" development. It's great if you're writing scripts for fun
>or education, but the libraries and APIs are still not stable.
>
>Python is mature enough for pretty much everyone. Zope, Plone, Portage,
>Bzr, DenyHosts, and a bunch of other utilities suggest that Python is
>excellent for many purposes. You can compile Python into binaries for
>improved speed or just run the scripts for more flexibility.
>
>In the end, the tools don't matter as much as knowing what you are
>trying to do and being able to pick up another language if you need to.
>
>-Barry
>
>David Ernst wrote:
>> I have neither the time, the inclination, nor the depth of knowledge
>> to get into a real flame-war about this, so I really hope that this
>> doesn't degrade to that. But, Steven's message got under my skin a
>> bit, so I feel I must say something....
>>
>> Really, I don't think there's a simple "Learn this language, it's what
>> people use" answer. Here's my history in brief:
>>
>> Although I'm sure it's dating myself, I'll admit that in college I
>> learned Pascal. At the time the "real programmers" stuck up their
>> noses at Pascal and raved about C. I evenutally looked into C and now
>> want to forget everything I saw. My favorite review of C is from
>> Bertrand Meyer, roughly: "C is the closest thing we have to portable
>> assembly language". You might be interested in doing things that
>> require something like portable assembly (like, say, writing hardware
>> drivers) you should absolutely learn C or C++. Otherwise, I say, stay
>> away from it. The only other good thing I can say about it is that it
>> makes fast programs, so applications where speed is of the
>> essence... yeah. But... ick.
>>
>> Anyway, when the web was young everybody seemed to write their dynamic
>> web stuff in perl, so I learned that, because I wanted to do that.
>> Perl is definitely the language I'm most comfortable with at this
>> point. I love it for what it is, but I have been leaning against it
>> recently because of what it isn't, and that is a system that'll
>> encourage you to build a well-organized large complex application.
>> Perl was really invented to solve small problems quickly and easily,
>> and when I have a problem of that sort, I'm usually half way through
>> my perl script before I realize that I might have chosen a different
>> language. But, the Object Oriented aspects of perl are weird -- I
>> often say that they are somewhat cynical (read the official perl
>> object-oriented tutorial http://perldoc.perl.org/perltoot.html to get
>> a sense of what I mean). But basically, some people fell in love with
>> Perl so badly that they thought they should use it for everything. I
>> like to think that I kept my head a bit more than that, and when I
>> found myself fighting against the language in some applications, I
>> looked for other options.
>>
>> When Java hit the scene in the 1990s, I bought the hype... and,
>> Steven, I must say, if you think Ruby is over-hyped, you're probably
>> not remembering what it was like when Java first came out. Java was
>> going to change our whole outlook on programming. It was going to be
>> so simple that everyone was going to start programming in it, everyone
>> would forget about all other languages, and, best of all, we would all
>> "write once, run anywhere". I bought into this at the time and
>> started researching Java. What I found is that is basically offered
>> nothing to me. I do most of my work in the world of web development
>> and system administration, and Java did not show me anything I was
>> interested in. Over time, I've only become more cynical about Java,
>> as nearly every java application I've had to use has been slow, ugly,
>> and just generally depressing to use. I suspect that some people
>> overcome the ugly-java tendency and I don't notice that they are java
>> apps... and I guess that hardware has finally caught up with Java
>> Virtual Machines, because I'm now less struck by everything Java
>> seeming so slow. So, it's probably not as bad as I think of it being.
>> But, suffice to say, I still have little interest in it. However, if
>> I was looking to write desktop applications, I'm sure I'd look into it
>> more. It's surely better than C.
>>
>> Then everyone started talking about Python. I suspect Python is a
>> great language. I've barely used it. Basically, my feeling is that
>> if I had a project well-suited for Python, I'd probably just do it in
>> perl. Python's approach to object-orientation seems only slightly
>> less an afterthough than perl's... you still have no real support for
>> anything private/protected, and you still have that "explicit self"
>> thing (c.f. http://beust.com/weblog/archives/000501.html) which is
>> kinda funny in perl but more strange in Python which seems to be more
>> proud of its OO support. And, I must admit, I'm hung up on the
>> significant white space thing. I'm sure I could get over it,
>> but... why?
>>
>> So, I turned to Ruby. Sadly, I must admit that I agree with several
>> of Steven's criticisms of the language: code breaking on language
>> updates does happen, much more often than it should... It is indeed
>> slower than other comparable languages. Matz should have included
>> utf8 support from the beginning. Having said that, it's nowhere NEAR
>> as bad as Steven makes it out to be. Most strange of the things
>> Steven said is: "recommends coding practices which are staunchly to be
>> avoided in *any* other language." I don't really know what he's
>> talking about there, but in my experience the BEST thing about Ruby is
>> the coding practices that it encourages. Compared to Ruby, using PHP,
>> Python, or Perl (or, really, C++) for OO programming seem very much
>> like traditional procedural languages with OO tacked on. I can only
>> imagine he's talking about things that other languages don't even have
>> (so no wonder they should be avoided!). Classic Ruby-isms like:
>>
>> 7.times do
>> whatever
>> end
>>
>> should really make us all pause and wonder why so many languages
>> consider it perfectly natural to write things like
>>
>> for (x = 1; x <= 7; x++) {
>> whatever
>> }
>>
>> At least many languages have now copied perl's "foreach $x (1..7)"
>> approach, which is far more readable than the classic C-style syntax
>> that java (foolishly, imho) emulated.
>>
>> But really, my main point about Ruby is this: Ruby has problems, but
>> ESPECIALLY if you're thinking of learning a language for FUN, it
>> should not be ruled out (much less avoided like the plague). Perhaps
>> Steven Black and I do very different things for fun, but most of my
>> fun projects do not rely heavily on long-term code-maintenance, native
>> UTF-support, or fastest-possible execution times. Meanwhile, Ruby
>> will make you rethink the ways that many programming languages do
>> things, and even if you never use it for a serious project, you'll
>> probably expand your understanding of OO programming in ways that you
>> won't get from most of the other languages in common use.
>>
>> Having said all that, I'll again say that I can't really recommend
>> Ruby over Python, and they are good for similar kinds of things.
>>
>> You see? You get me sucked into writing long emails! Now I'm behind
>> on everything else I was going to do this evening...
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 04:01:18PM -0500, Steven Black wrote:
>>
>>> If you want a job in the computer field, learning as much Java as
>>> possible could be a big help. It is used extensively in the enterprise
>>> sector.
>>>
>>> If you want a job at IU programming, Java is *the* language to aim for.
>>> All IU's big projects are written in Java.
>>>
>>> Java is used heavily in the "enterprise" sector. In many cases these are
>>> massive in-house applications. If I remember the job sector, around here
>>> if you want to get programming jobs and not work in Windows, you pretty
>>> much are stuck with programming in Java.
>>>
>>> Java has a large enough suite of libraries that learning more about it
>>> will benefit you in the long run rather than adding another language
>>> to your belt.
>>>
>>> If you were aiming toward systems administration, then there are a
>>> number of languages I could point you at. However for programming...
>>> Unless you're going to be programming in Windows and/or writing hardware
>>> drivers you may as well suck it up and learn the most Java possible.
>>>
>>> A lot of open source software is written in Java. And even more software
>>> plays nicely with Java. For instance, MySQL's Java interface is as fast
>>> as the C library interface. For most other languages it is slower, as it
>>> needs to use the C interface for the work, but for Java it has a true
>>> native interface.
>>>
>>> OpenOffice heavily uses Java. If you want to script OpenOffice you can
>>> basically either use Java, or use some odd version of BASIC that comes
>>> with it.
>>>
>>> Now, if you're planning to learn a language for fun, I would recommend
>>> you check out Python. Python is easy to learn and use, there is a
>>> wide set of generally well-documented libraries for it, and one of
>>> my favorite things: They've not only standardized on the programming
>>> language, they've standardized on the *documentation* language, so all
>>> Python code should be documented in English.
>>>
>>> Also, if you're planning to learn a language for fun, I would recommend
>>> you avoid Ruby like the plague. The "best practices in the industry"
>>> for Ruby produces systems which are unmaintainable and unsupportable.
>>> (Literally, you will be unable to perform a security update, let alone
>>> a distribution upgrade without breaking things.) The language runs
>>> significantly slower than any other language in the class. (Of the
>>> popular set of languages, they are only faster than Prolog.) They've
>>> failed to adopt UTF-8 or Unicode even though the language is as old
>>> as the Unicode standard, and the language was invented in Japan. The
>>> language is poorly implimented, and recommends coding practices which
>>> are staunchly to be avoided in *any* other language. It is over-hyped
>>> to the point where a lot of people mistakenly think it is good for
>>> something. In truth, it is not. (Except, perhaps as a warning.)
>>>
>>> You would be better off learning brainf**k than Ruby.
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainf**k (Wikipedia redirects that URL
>>> properly to the accurate name of the language. I have seen it called
>>> simply "BF".)
>>>
>>> Incase you've never heard of it. Here is "Hello World!" written in BF:
>>> ++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++
>>> ++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.
>>>
>>> But really, my recommendation is: If you want to make an occupation out
>>> of programming, learn as much Java as possible. Ideally try to make some
>>> nice Open Source Java program, so you can show potential employers your
>>> mad skills.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Steven Black
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 01:28:22PM -0500, Ben Shewmaker wrote:
>>>
>>>> I just finished my first computer science class at IU (covering Scheme), and
>>>> next semester the class I'm taking will be covering Unix, Emacs, and especially
>>>> Java. I'm wanting to push myself to learn something more at the same time
>>>> (eventually I would love to get involved with some sort of open source
>>>> project). Would it be wise to try to learn more than one language at once in
>>>> the first place, or would I be better served trying to learn more Java than the
>>>> course covers? What types of projects are developed with Java? What other
>>>> language would be useful to try to self learn?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the info and Happy New Year everybody!
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> BLUG@linuxfan.com
>>>> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
>>>>
>>> --
>>> Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> / KeyID: 8596FA8E
>>> Fingerprint: 108C 089C EFA4 832C BF07 78C2 DE71 5433 8596 FA8E
>>>
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