On Monday 31 July 2006 14:47, Matthew Miller wrote: > > Is it considered better these days to learn an object-oriented > > language first? > > Maybe. That was certainly the Official Wisdom for several years. However, I > think many people do just fine learning modern procedural programming > first. I guess that depends on one's point of view (or taste, actually), but in my opinion, a student really _has_learned_ to program when he can (at least in principle) understand what is _precisely_ going on with the machine when he executes a program. In that sense, it is essential that a student gets to understand that all being done in the processor is just a sequence of commands, and a full feeling of that one gets while learning assembly language (at least the basics of it). However, the assembly language is not so popular/useful these days, and the second best thing is just the usual procedural language like C (although I would not advise C to be the first language learned). On the other hand, object-oriented language gives one a completely different way of thinking, very useful for production work, but also very far from understanding what is actually going on and how does it get executed. In my humble opinion, the question one needs to answer for oneself is _why_ does one want to learn programming? If the answer is similar to "I want to get a job and make money out of it", then go ahead and learn C++. But if the answer is more to "I can't sleep at night because I think about how is this or that done in my system, and I want to hack it so it works better", then it is definitely better to learn C prior to C++. It's like learning to drive versus learning the details about the engine, transmission, etc. The latter gives you ability to drive, but also some extra information consisting mainly of understanding what's going on when you push the gas or brake pedal. The real question is whether one needs this extra understanding, which is mainly connected to potential latter use of one's driving skills. And of course, there is the psyhocogical effect of "being in control" feeling versus "get the job done" feeling. :-) If we continue like this, the thread will become OT in a very short time... :-) But I do enjoy this one. :-) Best regards, :-) Marko
