would it be harmful or dumb to learn functional programming before any other paradigm, such as imperative, or object-oriented? i took one course in college intro c++ and want to move forward now, so i'm thinking either object-oriented and moving to data structures (berkeley cs dept available free on their site), or functional programming w scala (coursera) next.
thoughts?
Name:
Anonymous2014-01-09 12:50
OP here, thanks all, and Lisp guy. Your plan sounds epic/intense. I have no reservations about it - except that I need to develop my skills at a quicker pace for grad school. My undegrad was physics, I took 3 CS classes that led up to Intro C++, I also can do most web languages, learned a bit of python at my last job. Now am back in school and need to really lock down some skills so I can finish my thesis not feeling like a schmuck.
I don't want to become a HN hipster lol but I do want to grow from where I am currently, and in the right direction so it helps me complete my education (MS thesis).
One way or another I have to do this, I just want to make sure I'm doing to semi right, and appreciate the input. I'd love to write a compiler, that'd be rad, but I don't have the overhead currently.
I'll most likely end up working with OOP in web/c#/c++ (or java) for this thesis, so I'm guessing I should just continue in the lineage of classes at most schools (in my free time), which go: intro (language), data structures, discrete math, algorithms, operating systems.
I just want to stop messing around and do it right already, while giving myself enough to understand/complete thesis.