Learning to Code - Rust as a potential first language?

Thanks for the additional tips. Yes, I'm familiar with change management systems, but will likely go with git, since it seems to be the most popular - but also because it was written by someone I greatly admire (Linus is the man!).

I'm also familiar, a little. with compiling things, as my linux distro of choice was/is gentoo, although I haven't used it in a while, so my last 2 projects where I was in a hurry and needed linux I just used the latest Debian stable.

But I'll likely set up a hardened gentoo system to do my coding on.

Thanks again, I really appreciate the feedback from everyone.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: tanstaafl

If you are learning basic programming skills, any language will work!

What I mean is that programming is not a computer language but a method of thinking. You learn algorithms and how to move data around… each computer language has its strengths and weaknesses.

Python is a good place to start. Once you get chunks of code working, then you can start the “object oriented programming” where you define your own objects. Once that happens, you are able to do very powerful things with programming.

Don’t get hung up on Python being “interpreted” because you can compile it (which is how you build libraries of objects to reuse).

The next bit of advice is to learn something like subversion (code repository). You will learn how to check in/out code which leads to “compile at check in” which is a real world practice (agile, I think).

Lean and agile are both practiced in the real world and you will be asked about them on any job application.

Pick a language, learn the syntax. Learn repositories. And programming practices (lean or agile).

That would be to get a job!

If you are looking just to learn, you have some great info in this thread! The other stuff will happen if you stick with it!

Stretch: Build a Linux distro from scratch! Most of it is point and click but you will need to know how compile in/out options and there is a large code base to work with. If you can do that, then you can see if you can help with the code itself.

Good luck!

originally posted by: acackohfcc
assembler - makes you appreciate all high level languages

Absolutely true! I started coding on mainframes more than 40 years ago. My work was all in assembler then because on those machines, every bit in a word and every millisecond of execution time counted for something. When resources are limited, you have to find every way possible to shorten path length. Debugging in those systems really got you close to how computers work too.

About compiled vs. interpreted languages (for conventional development), hardware is so fast these days and interpreters are so optimized that it makes little difference. I once rewrote a Perl script to manage message queues on a very busy Linux server in C. Profiling them side by side, the improvement in the C code wasn't enough to justify the time spent to rewrite it or to maintain it. It's easier and cheaper to just buy bigger or more servers.

originally posted by: tanstaafl

If you have an hour to spare, watch this video, titled "The Worst Programming Language Ever". It's entertaining but also points out what drives language development.

youtube.com...

originally posted by: glend
Depends on what you want accomplish. Many years back I wrote a pc remote control program in pascal (aka delphi) that would have taken years longer to complete in C/C++. Because the speed of the program was really dependent on windows api's that were already compiled in C/C++, pascal was perfect at that time, in creating an application that I could quickly develop and market.

Hmmm... I wonder if it is a program that I have been using for a very long time...

It wouldn't have happened to be called GenControl would it?

I'm using a forked/updated free version called RemoteControl that works great in a Windows 10 domain (haven't tried it on Windows 11 machines yet)... it is amazingly fast and works flawlessly.

a reply to: tanstaafl

nah, mine was before GenControl. Think GenControl and most of the other RC programs use vnc libraries which is very respectable these days. I wrote my own graphic, compression and network libraries that were faster than vnc at the time of writing. But also specifically aimed at IT support of clients behind firewalls. Something none of the others provided, until years latter.

originally posted by: glend
a reply to: tanstaafl

nah, mine was before GenControl. Think GenControl and most of the other RC programs use vnc libraries which is very respectable these days. I wrote my own graphic, compression and network libraries that were faster than vnc at the time of writing. But also specifically aimed at IT support of clients behind firewalls. Something none of the others provided, until years latter.

Ah, ok... so, out of curiosity, what was it called? I've done a ton of googling on these kinds of tools

a reply to: tanstaafl

Id rather not be ID.

originally posted by: glend
a reply to: tanstaafl

Id rather not be ID.

Oh, right... sorry about that, wasn't trying to trick you, I just like these kinds of tools.

a reply to: tanstaafl

No prob's, all is good. I did not think at any stage you were trying to trick me.