Best first programming language

[Chris Gehlker]

On May 19, 2009, at 8:51 AM, Paul Mooring wrote:

> I really like ruby as well but my experience has been if he's planning
> on pursuing some type of CS degree he'll definitely need to know java
> and C++ for 90% of the programming related classes, so that might be a
> better place to start.



Here was my reasoning. In his freshman year he is going to have to  
take a survey course that will touch on C, C++,  Java and Scheme. At  
some schools it may be C, C++, prolog and scheme. In his sophomore   
year he is going to have to take algorithms. In both these courses  he  
will be expected to  turn in pseudocode first followed by a working  
program.

Now when I started my formal comp-sci education I already  had  
experience in several languages but I found that it was very easy to  
write  pseudocode that was very close to ruby or actually  was ruby.  
Then it was very easy to translate the ruby into the target language  
because I had a working ruby implementation sitting in front of me. I  
don't know if there is any other language that lends itself to a C++,  
approach to a problem or to a scheme approach to a problem the ay ruby  
does.

In the algorithms classes I literally turned in the same file for the  
pseudocode part of the assignment and for the executable part. The TAs  
who did the grading knew perfectly well what I was doing but they gave  
me good grades. TAs tend to like ruby.

The ruby  community was also very helpful and it was full of people  
who knew any given language.
--
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think  
I've forgotten this before. -Steven Wright, comedian (b. 1955)