From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2008-05-29T20:56:33+09:00
Subject: Re: Should I Learn Ruby as a First Language?

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 7:45 AM, Dave Bass <davebass@musician.org> wrote:
> Kyle Schmitt wrote:

>> C is the lingua franca of computers.  It doesn't make things easy for
>> you, it doesn't make things pretty, or necessarily intuitive, but it
>> does bring you right down to the metal in the end.
>
> This is exactly why we chose C as the first language for electronic
> engineering and information systems engineering students. Previously the
> course had been given in Algol 68 (!), then Pascal, but it was decided
> that C would be a much better foundation, and useful in the real world
> too.
>
> C is very hard to learn. Almost everybody comes unstuck on pointers and
> memory allocation. But this trains your mind, and once you've learnt C,
> you realise what other languages are protecting you from, and how they
> work internally (since most are written in C, like Ruby).

But, many don't seem to realize that the other languages are
protecting them and carry unnecessary techniques from C to the higher
level language.

-- 
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/