PSA for beginner programmers:

whatever your first language is, it will probably suck and you should learn more languages and more paradigms

this message brought to you by the existence of NodeJS

@grainloom
@Shamar
yeah, when you know more languages, you'll be able to better pick right tool for the job.

@Wolf480pl @grainloom

The languages you speak affect the way you think. Obviously this apply to programming languages too.

@Shamar @Wolf480pl @grainloom

Yes, everyone has to learn different languages.

However, starting with C means that you know how everything works directly with memory. You learn to implement very complex functionality (with ugly syntax, such as pointers to functions and whatnot) but you know how it works on a low level.

Then you go to other languages, and you learn algorithms, and design algorithms and think in several languages. That's the goal.

@rice
Starting with C means you learn the C runtime - typically the unix interface to the C runtime. It's a not quite right to think that C is how computers work.
@Shamar @Wolf480pl @grainloom

@mikeburns @Shamar @Wolf480pl @grainloom This is true! It just helps to understand the underlying processes better. Eventually when you learn lots of other languages on top, you just have a better understanding how to make things simpler, because you know the underlying processes, too.

@rice @mikeburns @Shamar @grainloom
Yeah, what's important here is that most of other languages are actually implemented on top of C runtime.

@mikeburns

Actually I do not remember much of the #Unix interface (writing a POSIX emulation library took me a while, and it's not yet perfect nor complete), but I still program my OS in C.

Its libc has been ported from Plan 9 and is pretty different from the C standard library.

In #Plan9 (and in #Jehanne too), the C runtime is the operating system.

However, to understand how #computers work, one should learn #Assembly.

Not as a first language, though.

@Wolf480pl @rice @grainloom

@Shamar @mikeburns @Wolf480pl @grainloom I think Python -> C (all concepts) in combination with Assembly -> other languages (Rust, functional langs, etc) makes sense if you want to learn fundamental in-depth.

@rice @mikeburns @Wolf480pl @grainloom

Actually every time I plan to teach my eldest daughter how to program, Python is the first language that comes to mind.

I don't really love #Python, it's a complex language (but... actually I do not like most programming languages I use 🤦‍♂️ ).

Still in its set of features, it's something that make it seems educational.

I don't know why. Maybe the balance between libraries' power and learning curve... don't know.

And I'd welcome alternatives.

@Shamar @Wolf480pl @mikeburns @rice Lua for first language? Or Ruby?

@grainloom @rice @mikeburns @Wolf480pl

Last time I read about Ruby it was a lot of "WTF!?!?" (too untyped for my taste and not as powerful as Python on the desktop).

I've never really studied Lua, but what I've read about seems pretty interesting (at least it's small!).

Does it have binding for some GUI library or toolkit so that one can hack something rapidly (just to catch attention)?

@Shamar @Wolf480pl @mikeburns @rice

It definitely has one for WxWidgets and probably for others (I haven't really looked) but there is also Love2D instead of GUI programming, which might be even more fun.

@grainloom @rice @mikeburns @Shamar
oh, and there's conky, which can be scripted with lua and has cairo bindings, so you can draw fancy CPU graphs and whatnot. Tho, for a beginner, Love2D or WxWidgets will probably be more fun I guess...

@Wolf480pl @Shamar @mikeburns @rice

There is also Multi Theft Auto which is a GTA:SA mod built around Lua scripting.

(and probably a bunch of others)

@grainloom @rice @mikeburns @Wolf480pl

Grand thief auto is not the most educational game I'm planning to play with my daughter though.

@Shamar @grainloom @rice @mikeburns so you are planning to play it with your daughter? :P