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<body><div dir="auto">Hello Huw<br><br>Nicely said. I started on 6809 then 6502. Like you, it helped understanding pointers.<br><br>Wasn't Erlang developed for use in telephone exchanges?<br><br>Computer languages are tools. As always it is best to select the right tool for the job. Without knowing the job it's all speculation.<br><br>As a first serious language I am reminded that years ago in college I was taught 'C' and Pascal. They had quite different characteristics and were considered complementary. Probably Python would replace Pascal, but I am not so sure about 'C'. Maybe Rust, but there are others that could be considered.<br><br>Regards<br>Alan Gray <br></div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="auto">On 23 October 2024 18:52:53 BST, "Huw Ford (ConceptPC) via Swlug" <swlug@mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<p>Hi,<br>
</p>
<p>I agree that C might not be the ideal 'first' serious programming
language, but after 40 years of programming, I’m still not
entirely sure which one would be.</p>
<p>I started with assembler on the 6502 CPU, then moved on to the
68000. From there, I learned K&R C (Kernighan and Ritchie). My
background in assembler, especially with memory addressing, helped
me make sense of C’s pointers. Later, I transitioned to ANSI C.</p>
<p>After that came C++. Once I got my head around object-oriented
programming (OOP), I really fell in love with it.</p>
<p>Eventually, I got into PHP and JavaScript, both of which are
syntactically similar to C in many ways.</p>
<p>But the language that really expanded my thinking was Erlang. It
was so different from anything else I’d ever used. That said, I
wouldn’t recommend Erlang unless you had a specific use case for
it.</p>
<p>I’ve worked with people who recommend Java as a good first
language—it’s quite similar to C but without the headaches of
manual memory management. However, I haven’t had any first-hand
experience with it myself.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Huw</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 23/10/2024 10:16, Neil Greenwood via
Swlug wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, 23 Oct 2024, 10:04
Morgan Green via Swlug, <<a href="mailto:swlug@mailman.lug.org.uk" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">swlug@mailman.lug.org.uk</a>>
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<div dir="auto">Hi,</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
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<div dir="auto">I am very new to programming, but I want
to start out on C to grasp the fund<span>amentals of
all programming lan<span>guages. Can anyone
recommend me any paperbooks on C programming that
is suitable for complete beginners?</span></span></div>
<div dir="auto"><span><span><br>
</span></span></div>
<div dir="auto"><span><span>Ki<span>nd regards,</span></span></span></div>
<div dir="auto"><span><span><span>Morgan Green</span></span></span></div>
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<div dir="auto">Hi Morgan, </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
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<div dir="auto">I'm not sure C is the best language for a
beginner. You have a lot of extra work to do managing memory -
my first C program (after I had 8 years experience with 2-3
other languages) just segfaulted, and I never fixed it! </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
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<div dir="auto">If you are just starting out, my recommendation
is to look at Python - apart from the strict indentation
requirement, it's much more friendly. This will give you a
good understanding of the fundamentals that are present in
most languages.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">If you want dead-tree books, Pragmatic Press
make a good series of introductory titles for both C and
Python, as well as a wife range of other languages. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
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<div dir="auto">Hope this helps, </div>
<div dir="auto">Neil</div>
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