From: Brian Wisti <brian@...>
Date: 2003-04-29T05:01:41+09:00
Subject: Re: Why I haven't learned (and don't really want to learn) C/C++


On Monday, April 28, 2003, at 12:37  PM, Harry Ohlsen wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:29, Mike Campbell wrote:
>> maybe that's where we differ; I don't consider learning different 
>> languages
>> "suffering".  As Hal pointed out, learning C now might be an 
>> investment in
>> the past, and yet, people still do, and want to, learn lisp!  Why?
>> Certainly not for its commercial value.  No, it's because learning it 
>> can
>> teach you things about your current language; new paradigms, etc.
>
> Also, depending on the environment in which you work, knowing at least 
> C could
> be very handy.  Not so much on Windows, but on *nix, for example, 
> knowing
> enough C to be able to sort out any trivial problems in open source 
> software
> you download, rather than having to wait for a new release, or having 
> to bug
> someone else to fix it, can save you time and annoyance.

There's that, and the fact that many languages rely on the C stdlib for 
a large chunk of their functionality.  My Perl programming skills 
increased by an order of magnitude after I got a basic grasp of C and 
its standard libraries.  Learning C is like learning the piano: the 
instrument may be large and not portable without a large amount of 
work, but it will give you a solid foundation that makes it easier to 
learn other languages/instruments.

- Brian W