On Monday, 4 November 2013 at 16:22:52 UTC, Gary Willoughby wrote:
On Monday, 4 November 2013 at 15:58:48 UTC, Chris wrote:
"Who D is Not For
- As a first programming language - Basic or Java is more
suitable for beginners. D makes an excellent second language
for intermediate to advanced programmers."
(http://dlang.org/overview.html)
I'd argue against this. I think D would make a terrific first
language.
(...)
Something like C or D (i'd opt for D) should be any devs first
language. Simply to educate them in the basics.
I would say that it really depends on the age too. D as a first
language for an 18 year-old technically savvy person might work,
but for a 10 year-old?
And for a non-english speaker? I remember having a very hard time
reading English books when I was younger (there might be many
programming books for languages with a lot of speakers, but not
for all languages), and had difficulties grokking pointers and
bit operations. Of course, kids today is much better at English
at a young age due to the internet etc., but it's still a lot of
new terminology you aren't used to.
Being in college now, I see a lot of grown-ups *really*
struggling to grasp *basic* programming concepts using Java (even
most of the teachers unfortunately). Starting with a limited
language like Java probably isn't that bad until you are capable
of both reading and writing non-trivial code.
I doubt most people here are representative for the average
programmer. Many of the discussions here are way over my head,
but I still hope that I'm above average.
