Benno wrote:
On Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 20:01:10 +1100, O Plameras wrote:
Sam Couter wrote:
O Plameras <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The reality of it all is anyone can learn C in one day and master it in
one week.
By this I mean, after one week anyone will be able to read anyone's C code
provided it is written correctly.
You can't just make stuff up and pretend it's true! That's not how the
world works.
I learned C in two days. But this was at BellLabs, Dayton, Ohio in 1989,
from the people
who invented C.
Yeah, and I learnt it in 3 hours when I was 13, but the thing is
Oscar, not everyone is as brilliant as you and me.
I don't mean you know C once you know to print "Hello world!".
By learning means mastery of the fundamentals including pointers and pointer
arithmetic.
C language is still the number one language in terms of percent share as a
development tool.
Let me just clarify. I do not consider myself brilliant.
But at the same time I will not diminish the abilities of many smart
newbies who
have the best potentials when they learn C. They can learn C from home
and right now.
You will not regret you learn C language.
Forget about people saying negative vibes about C.
Lets face it
half the people out there are below average, well strictly that
isn't true, but if you can misplace a parentheses, I'm allowed to
misuse statistics, anyway, where was I oh yeah, half of the world is
just not that bright, I well, it takes them more than a few days to
learn C. In fact I've seen people who in theory are in the top 25% of
the age-group based on dubious testing, and most of them struggle to
come to terms with pointers.
And since you are deferring to K&R, I'll defer to the oracle, joel
spolsky, from joel on Software fame. He says that most people don't
even have the part of the brain required to use pointers! (Disclaimer:
I don't think he actually meant that literally, and despite
thorough neurological examanations, researchs are still unable to
find this mythical pointer part of the brain.)
Anyway, people should learn C, but that doesn't mean they should use.
Its kind like math, you should learn how to long multiplication, but
in the end its much more productive and less error-prone to just use
a calculator.
Again, newbies out there don't be intimidated with C. If you aspire to
be the best of the best
learn C. Five days of C language learning is a small change when
compared to what will
be in store for you once you have this tool. C language is the mother of
many other languages.
I'm glad Oscar finally agrees with me! Learning C is one of the most important
things to do if you want to be a programmer.
Benno
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