From: MRH <mauriceroman@...>
Date: 2008-05-29T21:34:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Should I Learn Ruby as a First Language?

On May 28, 2:54 pm, Mark Wilden <m...@mwilden.com> wrote:
> On May 28, 2008, at 11:36 AM, Kyle Schmitt wrote:
>
> > Learn C first.
>
> As someone who learned UCSD Pascal first, and then went on to
> assembler, then C, I disagree. :)
>
> You don't have to be able to overhaul an engine to ride on a train.
> You should always take the easiest way that fulfills your goals.
>
> I was a Classical Studies major at university. People would always
> say, "Oh, I wish I'd learned Latin!" Idiots. :) Yeah, learning Latin
> will help you learn French, etc. But if you want to learn French, you
> should just learn French.
>
> We only have a limited amount of time in our lives. Any time spent
> learning a bad language like C is time we can't spent learning
> something else - like how to write maintainable, well-tested code.
>
> Taken to its logical extreme, you should really know how to design
> digital circuits before you jump into C. Would it make you a better
> Ruby programmer? Absolutely! What would make you an even better Ruby
> programmer, however, is learning Smalltalk or Scheme or TDD or Rails.
> Limited time means you can't learn everything. Make sure what you
> learn is actually useful.
>
> Learning C means not learning something else.
>
> ///ark

I agree, although I will devote some time to becoming acquainted with
the lower level, just enough to broaden my perspective I think.