Re: Programming

From: Dragos Ruiu (dr_at_kyx.net)
Date: 02/15/05

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    To: "Ernest Nelson" <juridian@juridian.com>, <security-basics@securityfocus.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:18:52 -0800

    On February 14, 2005 01:16 pm, Ernest Nelson wrote:
    > Most languages don't teach bad habits, bad references and teachers do. You
    > can learn to write bad cobol just as easily as you can learn bad perl, c,
    > or vb.

    Aw come on... It's way easier to write bad COBOL than c or VB.
    But, actually, it's probably easier to write bad perl than any of those.

    Call me old fashioned but I'm still of the opinion that the best language
    to start out in is still PASCAL (for learning only, not for real code):

    Small function set to learn, not easy to get lost in and wander
    into the weeds in with some esoteric special features, strong typing,
    all the basics covered, etc...

    It's not OO but I still think that OO is dangerous, and you need to
    understand algorithms and functional programming, before you
    get enough OO rope to hang yourself.

    Python isn't bad either and is OO, but imho provides too much
    stuff that can confuse/distract new coders. It also provides too much
    OO candy to lean on so it doesn't force you to really have to
    understand basic algorithm knowledge that is crucial to
    building good code.
     
    Don't discount learning assembler either. You'll never regret it.
    (But it is daunting enough to dissuade the less dedicated
    beginning coders.)

    Java's not bad taken in isolation. It's only the evil thing people
    do with it typically that makes it inappropriate for beginning
    programmers imho. I don't care how many terabytes of RAM
    or petaMIPS you have. 9Mb for "hello world" is just wrong.

    my 2c,
    --dr 

    -- 
World Security Pros. Cutting Edge Training, Tools, and Techniques
Vancouver, Canada	May 4-6 2005  http://cansecwest.com
pgpkey http://dragos.com/ kyxpgp
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