Return Styles: Pseud0ch, Terminal, Valhalla, NES, Geocities, Blue Moon.

Pages: 1-

High level or Low level languages

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 18:06

So /prog/, im trying to get into programming but i don't know if i should start with a high level or low level language. Basically, should i go for the complicated, high power, high level languages or should i go for the low power low level languages? I'm a beginner so i don't know if I could handle high level stuff.

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 18:26

High level is easier and will teach you what programming really is/should be. Low level is needed if you actually want to understand why it all works and how to handle stuff when it breaks badly or just when you need to optimize.

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 18:54

>>2
I was trying to troll dickwad

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 19:01

start with javascript

actually... just stick with javascript

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 20:44

Languages are not high level or low level, they are a spectrum like autism.

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 20:50

what ever you feel, either way along your journey with will learn one of them

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 21:23

With high level it's easier to start programming. For this, I recommend Python.
With low level it's easier to keep programming. For this, C is the best choice.
Personally, I went with the second one, and I think you should do so, too. If you really aren't able to understand C, though, Python is a mighty fine option for a first language. A hint. Never, EVER, start with Java. Please. Thank you for listening.

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 21:58

>>7
java is too high level??

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 22:03

>>8
no java too gay level

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 22:22

>>7
but i hear that java is enterprise

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-20 23:31

If you're doing this on your own time (this is /prog/ after all), here's something different: you could go QBASIC or similar, computer architecture + assembly, C and then Lisp, in that order.

Despite what Djikstra and the intelligentsia has to say about BASIC, it was the language most self starters used in the 80s and early 90s, you'll walk the path many have walked since the Homebrew Computer Club.

Now that you've mastered a primitive imperative language: goto, assigning values, conditionals. You will need to read about what BASIC has been hiding from you: how memory works, and now you are (almost) ready to do assembly.

After you've written some simple assembly stuff, nothing in C should be a mystery and you'll know exactly why anything segfaults.

Finally read SICP.

OR, you could do the python thing which all the universities do, but I feel its more to churn out students with some quick programming knowledge within 1-2 semesters to deal with the rest of the degree which has little to do with programming itself. The problem with this approach is the same as when they taught Java: Its too rushed, and you end up in a comfort zone with the first language. Many people who get into CS either already self started somewhere along the line above, or they had zero interest in self starting and were in it for the money at the time, one of these categories probably can't code after graduation.

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-21 0:01

>>11

terrible advice

learn this dead language because people used it in the 90s!

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-21 10:12

But Java is from 90s!

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-21 10:19

All these are from 80s or 90s: C++, Obj-C, Object Pascal, Perl, Java, Javascript, Lua, Ruby, Python, PHP and Visual Basic.

Don't change these.
Name: Email:
Entire Thread Thread List