Re: [dev] Suckless Way to Learn How To Program

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 06:20:17PM -0400, Brandon LaRocque wrote:
>This is a pretty easy question to ask, though I'm not sure how hard it
>would be to answer. My question to those at Suckless is this:
>
>My son is interested in computer programming, and given the way that
>programming is being taught, I don't think it's the right way to go
>about learning.What would you guys here suggest for a self-learning
>curriculum that I could set up for him? By this, I mean languages,
>ideas, projects. I would really appreciate any help in the matter.
>It'd be interesting to know what you guys consider a 'suckless
>programming 101' course would consist of, for self-learners.

I personally learned mostly by reading and writing code, and
that's important no matter what you do. But there are definitely
some good books. Most books by Kernighan are good, especially:

   K&R (with DMR)
   http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/2124563/02348312550/
     (with Rob Pike)
   and The Practice of Programming (also by Rob Pike)

In the lisp arena, SICP (which is free) and Paul Graham's On
Lisp are good, but demanding both. My advice is to stay away
from C++ or Java at the start. They both have too many features,
and the latter all but requires inelegant and verbose code.

High level languages like Scheme, ML, Haskell, and Python have
their definite up points for begining programmers, but the lack
of strictures in the last seems to lead a lot of people to
write sloppy code.

But, in the end, I think he'll probably ignore our advice and do
what he finds comfortable, which is probably for the best.

-- 
Kris Maglione
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends on his not understanding it.
	--Upton Sinclair