PierreGaston writes:
Recently I have read a post from a guy who was asking how to convert a source file into a program ¹
I start searching the web for a good introduction to programming (perhaps with answer to questions like how a computer works, what is a compiler, what is an interpreter a little presentation of commonly used languages and why people use them) but I didn’t manage to find something clear and simple.
There are a lot of tutorials, books to learn how to write a program in the language X but nothing that would really help this guy in my opinion.
Do you know something like this? (if you managed to understand what I wrote ;)) Do you think this kind of introduction would be usefull? Am i wrong ie the usual way to gain this kind of knowledge is to learn a language first and then to discover the rest of the world?
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I can barely remember where I learnt the basics. I know I learnt them on my own, with not much more than the info manuals for GCC and Emacs... It must habe been more than ten years ago. Isn’t it strange? A bit more than ten years ago, I knew nothing of the Internet, didn’t know how to program, and looked at my old C64 with nostalgia. Now my MP3 player has 256MB/64KB times more memory...
How did I learn? I don’t know. I was very impressed with SICP because that made me *understand* the programmer mindset, object orientation, register machines, what programming is all about. But it didn’t offer down-to-earth basics such as what programming languages there are, who uses them, why one should learn them, or how a basic programming tool-chain is used. I think there must be an O’Reilly book for fledgling programmers, however. Not 768 pages of APUE, of course. But maybe something easier, for newcomers. I also liked TAOUP, but that, too, doesn’t teach you the basics. It teaches you design.
I think I’ve been in this business for far too long. 😄
#Software
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I remember how *I* learned!
There was a magazine called Family Computing. In the back they had video games. Only one catch, you have to type them in to play them. BASIC, baby.
You type in enough video games, you start to notice patterns.
– LionKimbro 2005-04-09 02:30 UTC
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Heh, I think I was too lazy for that...
– Alex Schroeder 2005-04-09 20:00 UTC