Re: why learn C?

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.

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


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

pointers: yes
algorithms: why ?

why not ?

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

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.

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



" i think algorithms and data-structures are more important than
learning a new programming language.

[SNIP]

/arnuld/ is not an experienced programmer, so i feel difficulty in
believing his words. i want to know the views of people here,a s much
of the post belong to C.

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

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


[SNIP]
Moreover, I do not know how to learn 'abstraction, software design and
problem solving' without any langage.

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.

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.

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) ?

i guess, there are more.


BTW, thanks for the critique.

-- arnuld
http://arnuld.blogspot.com

.

Relevant Pages

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