[Tutor] Which programming language is better to start with

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

> 
> I definitely agree with Sean that knowing how the hardware works
> (learn assembly, but not x86 -- it is too ugly and messy) really helps
> for writing decent software in higher level languages.
> 

the college I attended but never graduated (silly mistakes of the young) taught
mips and solaris assembly.  It was fun to really touch the guts.  Also made you
appreciate little things like a for loop (-:

for(int i = 0; i < value; i++) {
  count += i;
}

that is a lot of assembler.  Then again the experience of wrapping your head
around a new language is fundamental to being a real coder.  If you just want
to write that little glue to get your physics or bio working, great.  But to
really be a hacker you need to constantly try out new languages.

A friend of mine once said every programmer should learn a machine's
assembler, a functional langauge, a stack language, a procedural language, and
an object language.  Doesn't really matter which ones.  it is the act of
learning them that is worthwhile.

Another comment I have is to always program in the idiom of a language.  In
college several of my professors were obviously long time C coders forced to
learn C++ and Java.  I relearned all of my C++ after leaving school.

Back to the thread, is python the right place to start.  I think it is a good
place to give people what they need to not be scared off.  Once they have
written a few real programs they can start to play with one of the other
languages.  For me a programming language is like a writing style.  Some of us
like to write haiku others are into Shakespeare.  Some people write horror
others write fantasy.  Each genre gives you certain things and sets up certain
guidelines.  Trying to write a horror story entirely in haiku would be
interesting but painful.  Python is just a style.  A way to make the words you
type become something meaningful for the computer.  At the same time how many
of us have tried to write a haiku and found it really difficult because all we
could think was "5 7 5, 5 7 5" instead of "snow fell on my nose; I like the way
it feels cold; wet as it melts down" (hey I just made that up - wow).  The
point is if you try to write a sonnet and get bogged down in the rhyme and
metre you never write the sonnet.  For me, python gives me all I want and gets
out of my way.  Then again, my favourite poetry is haiku and e.e. cummings, so
I am a little weird (-: