[Coco] re:Learning to program

Tony Cappellini tony at tcapp.com
Fri Dec 16 20:02:16 EST 2005


Python is my language of choice!!
Highly recommended as a first language to learn, EVEN over Pascal.
It's easier than Basic, but also features some OO constructs to let 
you go further when you're ready.
It can be extended to almost any other language or modules written in 
other languages.



Message: 3
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:11:37 -0500
From: Robert Gault <robert.gault at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [Coco] Learning to program
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Message-ID: <43A0DEE9.5060605 at worldnet.att.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

There were some messages on the "best" way to learn programming. On that
subject was an interesting article "Where's the Real Bottleneck in
Scientific Computing?" by Gregory V.Wilson which appeared in the Jan.
American Scientist. To paraphrase, for every successful simulation there
were dozens of groups struggling to get their programs to run. Many
struggled on for months or years to achieve better than a crash or a
divide by zero. Getting to computation heaven was taking much longer
than expected.

Wilson is a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto
and has placed his course material on the Internet at
http://www.third-bit.com/swc
Much of the material is specific to Python ( similar in many ways to
Basic09 ) but there are many generally applicable suggestions for any
computer language. It is well worth browsing through the site.




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