Re: why learn C?

Le 22-02-2007, arnuld <geek.arnuld@xxxxxxxxx> a écrit :
1. C gives you a strong base of Procedural style of programming which
forms the basis of learning other paradigms e.g OOP

I am not sure that C gives better 'strong base' than Ada.

OK, 1st have to Google for Ada as i never came across some Ada-code. i
never even read about its design-goals and/or any articles related to
it.

comp.lang.ada

BTW, your "summary of Ada" can be useful for me, if you can.

In a very few words, Ada is a modern Pascal. And Ada 83
is, to me, a very good langage to learn procedural programming.

2. with C one will learn about pointers and algorithms.

pointers: yes
algorithms: why ?

why not ?

This is the one that states somthing that have to give argument,
not the opposite.

1. i tried some Common Lisp where i never had to worry about
algorithms.

How ? How did you do a balanced binary tree in Common Lisp
without algorithm ?

2. in C++, you get read-made algorithms from Standard Library, so
around 95% of the times, you only need to do "#include<algorithm>".

whereas in C, you have design the algorithms, from scratch.

No, they are several ready-made library for C. One difference
with C++ is that you have to chose one, this is not in the
standard. But you also can do everything by yourself in C++.

but may be i am biased, as i did not take the case of other languages
like OCaml, Haskell, Mercury or Eiffel here.

And so many others...

On algorithms: it depends what mean 'learning about algorithms'.

i meant, "applying the specific algorithm, in the language your are
working with".

There is a gap between writing and using. What did you mean by
'applying' ?

you can't. what i meant is:

abstraction, software-design & problem-solving are independent of any
programming language *and* you learn all of these by applying them in
a programming language, just like algorithms."

i think that was obvious.

No. The same problem is not solved the same way in SQL, Matlab, C or Prolog.
OK, the is a 'common base': clear interface, independant implementation,
and general enough but not too much.
But is there a way to learn it independantly from the langage?
I do not think so. I may be wrong.

Moreover, I am under the
impression that the 'good' software design is not langage-independant.

good software design is language-independent,as i said already, *and*
some programming languages are a not a good-fit for a particular
design but a perfect-fit for some other designs.

yes and no. It is a long debate...

At leats, learning C is usefull because the is C, a kind of universal
programming langage known by all, a little bit like 'English' in
natural langages.

Is this the only benefit you think of C (except pointers) ?

Benefit of 'learning' C or benefit of 'using' C ?

Marc Boyer
.

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