On Tue, 28 Feb 2006, Jeremy Baker wrote:
I've read the preceding posts and wonder what should be the first three languages that I might study from a general perspective? Perhaps I should approach three contrasting languages, and I surmise Fortran and C represent contrast? What type of Fortran would be a good start? Reference was made to many types of languages, I tried to glean what I could, but being a greenhorn to CS I was not able to recognize which codes were derivatives. Any advice or suggestions?
Oh, I'm full of advice here... First a disclaimer. You question has so many answers there is no answer. All that any replies can do is help you make choices. Now that I've gotten that out of the way... let me tell you what to do and ignore all those others who will reply. Hah! What do THEY know...:-) Seriously -- I don't know what "a general perspective" means, so let me make a short list of languages to study depending on what you want to get out of them. If you are interested in operating systems or general purpose application development on linux boxes, learn C, C, C and C. C was co-invented by the same people that invented Unix (sorta) and the two have co-developed ever since. The kernel is in C (for any unix you could name, pretty much). The basic unix toolset is in C. Device drivers are in C. At a guess, 90% of the application code base in e.g. Fedora Core or Centos is in C, with some honorable mention apps in LIST and C++ or scripting languages. If you are feeling adventurous or long for structure and protection from the harshnesses of C, you can always tack C++ on top of C, but start with C or you'll never learn about pointers and raw structs as you get lost in classes and the "C++ way". If you are interested in doing numerical stuff, you will probably want to learn Fortran first (however revolting the idea as it SUCKS for doing "real application" development, I'm sorry, no real apologies to fortran enthusiasts out there). However, as Greg has pointed out Fortran compilers are marginally more efficient than C compilers for numerical code, there is a HUGE numerical code base in fortran, lots of numerical libraries with a fortran interface, and honestly for certain classes of numerical application it is well suited. C and/or C++ are also increasingly used for numerics though (the Gnu Scientific Library has a C interface), and unless you are serious about doing lots of scientific coding you're probably better off doing C or possibly C++ first instead. If you are less concerned about existing application code or operating systems, and just want a language that is well-structured and friendly to developing NEW applications, C++ is a good choice. If you learn it first, you will be mystified by a lot of C code, but people who learn it first tend to be perfectly happy with it and often never bother to learn C. It is well-suited for application development where the tool works with data structures that can be thought of as "objects" that can be created, destroyed, and manipulated according to certain rules. It is somewhat less well-suited (in my opinion, mind you, others would argue) to writing "procedural" code where the data objects are simple and straightforward (e.g. numerics where Fortran rules with C/C++ coming in second). Its rules also form something of a straightjacket -- your protection and structure come at a small price in creativity, unless/until you learn BOTH C and C++ and can use the embedded power of C in your C++ code, breaking the rules as it were. I think it is much easier to learn C++ first, but probably better overall to really mastet C and then move on to C++. But some people who reply (who generally followed this latter path) are better qualified to remark on this. These three are the only compilers I'd advise learning. There are other interesting choices, sure, but very small code bases and much more specialized application spaces for any of them, and I'd honestly suggest that you start with just one based on what your needs are and the descriptions above. However, I'd strongly suggest that you learn at least one scripting language from the choice of perl and python. The question of which one is best is an open invitation to Jihad, so I will avoid it. perl is the more C-like of the two -- good for procedural programming, a LOT of the language syntax and library calls are thin wrappers on top of the C calls, but it has significant enhancements, e.g. inline regular expression parsing. python is the more object-oriented of the two (and more structured) with somewhat fascist rules for writing the actual code (but much protection gained from following them). There are tons or very useful applications written in both. You can do web-apps (CGI) in both. java would be (in my opinion) a distant third choice because of the encumbrances and general PITA associated with putting the language interpreter on a machine -- java is only "pseudo"free code as Sun keeps it pretty strictly controlled and Microsoft is in a constant war with Sun to try to co-opt it or replace it. There is plenty of code written in it, nonetheless, including a smattering of numerical code. If you are interested in web-development it, or a perl-like OPEN SOURCE OPEN STANDARD language called PHP are not terrible choices, php WAY before java. bash programming is always useful if you're interested in doing sysadmin work or systems programming as opposed to numerical or application programming. So I'd recommend some pattern like: [Fortran,perl,bash] (numerical focus, unstructured, some systems) [C,perl,bash] (general purpose, unstructured, lots of systems work) [C++,python,] (general purpose, structured, no systems work) or the like... Don't try to tackle too compilers at once -- you'll go mad. Learn one well, THEN tackle number two..., and you can leverage what you learn from the one in the other(s). rgb
-- Jeremy Baker SBN 634 337 College Hill Johnson, VT 05656
-- Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
