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>Unrelated, but I often wonder why people insist on a program that prints a string to the screen as the universal best first program. It's very practical, but i
by endtime 16y ago
>Unrelated, but I often wonder why people insist on a program that prints a string to the screen as the universal best first program. It's very practical, but it's also so tangential to what programming is.
The point is that the first step is getting your environment set up so that you can write[, compile,] and execute code. Printing a string is just a conveniently trivial program.
- tel 16y agoIt's true that that's the first step to programming as a craft, but it's hardly the first step to programming as a way of thinking, managing complexity, and building abstraction. That's like saying the first step to flying an airplane is turning the ignition. Yes, that's true, but without a firm idea of what's going to be happening after that point you're only going to hurt yourself by turning that key. It's something that comes to head when learning to fly a plane/program.
- Avshalom 16y agoIt's true that that's the first step to programming as a craft, but it's hardly the first step to programming as a way of thinking, managing complexity, and building abstraction. But programming is a craft, so how is the first step tangential.
- endtime 16y ago>It's true that that's the first step to programming as a craft, but it's hardly the first step to programming as a way of thinking, managing complexity, and building abstraction. It's the first step when learning a new language, which is exactly when Hello World programs are customary.