From: Rick DeNatale Date: 2008-05-30T02:35:46+09:00 Subject: Re: Should I Learn Ruby as a First Language? On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Kyle Schmitt wrote: > On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 6:53 AM, Rick DeNatale wrote: >> And while learning Latin, might help some learn French up to a point, >> I'd argue that knowledge of one language can also interfere REALLY >> learning another, related or not, if one can't accept that the second >> >> There's a long history of English grammarians clinging to the myth >> that English grammar must follow Latin grammar, leading to bogus rules >> like the injunction against splitting an infinitive, which is common >> in English usage, but impossible in Latin since the infinitive is a > > To the first point, I'd actually argue that learning the second > foreign language, or a second programing language teaches you more > about the first than you'd even imagine. Maybe it's a mindset, or > maybe it's what languages you're working with, I'm not sure. I've got no argument with that, my argument is that your first language can have a big effect on how you learn, or fail to truly learn the second. > Contrary to what I advised, I learned BASIC first. I was OK in it, > then I learned C++ in school (It took quite awhile for me to be able > to write straight C after that). Learning in that order I've often > felt was not good for me. > > But after learning C++, I was so much better in BASIC than I was > before, that I ended up tutoring/teaching it to business students > (this was way back in the day). The only way I could do that was > because learning that second language taught me so much more about > programming. > > Although perhaps that makes an argument for learning BASIC (really > really basic, not this VB/business basic junk) or shell script first, > _then_ delving into C, then an abstract language. In my case, and I suspect that I'm considerably older than the average participant here, I first learned Fortran I, and quickly branched out to learn many languages including 1620 assembler, IBM/360 Assembler, Snobol, Lisp 1.5, PL/I, APL\360, PDP/5 and 8 assembler, Algol, etc. This gave me a rather broad base before I ever encountered C (In fact much of this took place before C was born). In addition to language use, I had a pretty good BS education in CS including data structures, and compiler construction. After University, I used mostly PL/S which was IBM's equivalent to C, it was a slightly higher-level than assembler language with a PL/I like syntax much like C is a slightly-higher level than assembler language with a stripped down BCPL syntax. My exposure to C came a bit later, and I first really used it to develop a variant called ClassC which was similar in concept to, and developed concurrently with, and without knowledge of, Objective-C > I still believe that people should learn C though, before embarking on > programming projects, much less careers, even if they don't use C for > it. While it is important at some point to understand the level of abstraction at which C lives, I think that it's more important to get a broad understanding of programming. > As for English and it's horrific grammar, it's a Germanic language > that was busy absorbing Latin, Franco and the occasional Greek words > for 10 centuries. I've heard, but can't find references anywhere > right now, that the grammar itself was latinized shortly after the > advent of cheap printing. Apparently there was an underlying motive > to make it more difficult, since that would make it easier to > distinguish between the educated and the non educated. Evil isn't it? > Just wish I could find a reference..... I don't know that it was an evil plot. It just reflects the history of England as a crossroads/invasion target, and the fact that society is never homogeneous. It's why for example, English has multiple words for various animals and their meat, Pig and Pork, Cow and Beef, Calf and Veal... This comes from the Norman invasion, after which the language of the Court and Gentry was French. The former names are germanic in origin and were used by the farmers who were Anglo Saxons, the latter were French. Notice how we tend to use these words today to refer to the animal, vs. the meat. I've seen this effect mentioned several times, and I'm almost certain one of them was in the book "The Story of English" by Cran, MacNeill, and McCrum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Englis h -- Rick DeNatale My blog on Ruby http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/