From: Kyle Schmitt <kyleaschmitt@...>
Date: 2008-05-30T04:44:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Should I Learn Ruby as a First Language?

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
Errr.  Lisp 1.5?  I'm going to guess then, you were learning this
stuff in the mid to early sixties?

Yeah.  I started as a little kid with C64 basic using sample programs
from "3-2-1 Contact" magazine... I think that was 1983.

Just a little generational gap :)

> 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.
Hum.  But don't you think that if someone learns, really learns and
uses, the fluid flexible everything-hidden-behind-the-scenes languages
first, that they will have trouble when they eventually have to deal
with the nitty gritty of C or ASM?

> one of them was in the book "The Story of English" by Cran, MacNeill,
 OK, now I've got something to read some weekend soon.

--Kyle