It's always good to know C if you ever need to write an Apache module! Juan Madrigal
Web Developer University of Miami Richter Library On Jul 30, 2011, at 5:39 AM, "Luciano Ramalho" <luci...@ramalho.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 4:18 PM, Genny Engel <gen...@sonoma.lib.ca.us> wrote: >> C++ might be a better choice if you want to start off with a grounding in >> object-oriented programming. Or maybe Java. I'm about to start the C++ >> course at the local junior college. Which reminds me to mention, it >> probably doesn't matter which programming course you take right now -- if >> you then go through life taking more programming classes like I do! > > Here are a few quotes from computer science notables about C++: > > "I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not > have C++ in mind" (Alan Kay) > "There are only two things wrong with C++: The initial concept and the > implementation" (Bertrand Meyer) > "Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how > they should solve some problem, they said, 'OK, we'll do them both'. > So the language is too baroque for my taste" (Donald E Knuth) > > To really learn OOP, Ruby, Java, Python and particularly Smalltalk are > much better choices, IMHO. OK, you won't find much practical use for > Smalltalk, but neither for C++ in this day and age (not in a library > setting, anyway). And learning C then Smalltalk is a great path to > Objective-C, the main language used to program iPhones and iPads. > > Putting aside the OOP issue, learning C is totally worthwhile as a > grounding for any other language. Its what C++ adds to C that is not > worth the trouble, as there are better alternatives. > > Cheers, > > -- > Luciano Ramalho > programador repentista || stand-up programmer > Twitter: @luciano
