[OT] partialy I was wondering what suggestions for programing

[DCT Jared]

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 04:01:25 -0800, Kendrick-LUG wrote:
> I never saw a specific book on
>fundamentals of programingl.

I can't imagine one exists. How can you teach fundamentals
of programming without examples? And if you're going to use
examples, why give examples from a dozen languages?

Therefore,

Fundamentals of programming books will be like you described,
fundamentals of C, or fundamentals of Assembler. Pick one
and go.

All languages are basically alike; they implement the same ideas
with variously flavored methods. It is very easy to learn Python if 
you already know C because you know what to do, and how
to do it, and only have to learn syntax, which takes a few days. 

(Actually, if you've learned one language well, and know SQL well,
picking up a new language is about two weeks of hard work. 
Then you know enough to do what needs to be done, ie 
where all the help docs are and how they are organized.
PHP has the best help docs I know, since users can add
comments to every page of the documentation.)

Perl is awesome because it is so flexible. Some people don't like 
that kind of flexibility, thinking it makes for lazy coders, so such 
people promote Python or other strongly typed, strongly structured 
languages. I personally like the freedom that perl gives. And I 
am not lazy. I liked Perl for a whole different set of reasons when
I used to be lazy. I don't recommend Perl for a first language
if you are lazy. 

Learn some Python or Ruby first, then when you really want to 
have fun, get into something like perl or D.

-Jared