Re: About programing, a general question

I have taught 4 different languages professionally, BASIC, PASCAL,
FORTRAN(actually a language with syntax similar to FORTRAN), and C.  I
prefer to teach people C.

       I am not a real C guru, but I can tell you that it has the power to
either great abstraction, or to be very close to the machine.  It
depends on how the programmer views the problem.  I know that there are
people who will argue with me on that point, but lets not get
sidetracked here.  The goal of a programmer is to produce useful working
code that does the jobs needed to be done.

       There are anomalies in all languages.  Some of them are inherent to the
language, some are due to the compilation process, in the conversion
from a somewhat human recognizable syntax to machine code in several
steps.

       So to talk about the things that have bothered one person in one
language is not really material at this point.  And in some cases those
issues can compiler dependent (as the A+b==0 case where the potential
errors come from whether a and b are integer, float, double or long
double, and what is the defined value of true (b==0 can be 1 or -1,
integer or long.  If 1, it is binary 0000 0000 0000 0001 and -1 is 1111
1111 1111 1111 for example)  And the C definition makes char and byte
synonymous at this time, although new character sets are represented
differently.

       So the discussions of evaluation are compiler dependent and in most
cases somewhat machine dependent as well.

       My view is of a programmer who does mostly embedded type stuff, so it
is different from a person who specializes in say graphics, or
databases, or even text manipulation, or perhaps a medical or biological
programmer.  Furthermore, some programmers specialize in mathematical
areas, such as filtering, or high precision, or signal processing.
Others work in theoretical physics.

       Choosing Python to manage long chain mathematics would probably not be
too efficient or productive.  Fortran would not be good for text
manipulation.  Lisp would not make a good report generator (in my
opinion anyway), APL would not be good for database administration.

       I do all kinds of programming in C.  I cannot do a full database from
scratch in C, and would probably use SQL in some form for that, but for
most "quick hack" tools I still use C from the command line.  Most of my
programs are repeat use, but require very little interaction and little
in the way of feedback (think YUM as an example).

       When working on microcontrollers I use Assembly for most programs.
When working in my professional field as a Test Programmer, I rely on C,
BASIC, assembly and machine language (bit control of parts is required
to test them).

       This is all to say that the ultimate language you use will be mostly
determined by your career path, but you will most likely use more than
one.

       To learn, I recommend Intel Assembler code and C. Mostly because they
are somewhat good examples of both power and complexity, and can produce
quick simple programs that do useful things and represent real
accomplishment.

       But remember my programming is focused on functional programming.
That is programs that produce hardware operations in real time.

       I would also recommend reading a lot of code.  There are a lot of
oxymorons in code production.  Self documenting code is one.  If it were
really self documenting we probably wouldn't call it code.  Logical
sequence is another. While many things take place in a logical sequence,
when programming for efficiency, what is fast and what is logical will
sometimes be at odds.  Reading code and reading about code will give you
an edge in these types of issues.

Programming is fun, challenging, nerve wracking, frustrating, and amazing all at the
same time.

Regards,
Les H