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I always think C/C++ is not a good first language to teach, because you need to understand some general concepts about computer systems before diving in. Probab

I always think C/C++ is not a good first language to teach, because you need to understand some general concepts about computer systems before diving in. Probably more than half of the beginners in their first C class give up when handling pointers/arrays - it's not because the concept is hard, but because they have no idea what the "memory" in the computer actually is and how it works. You're left with a naive analogy of home addresses and phone numbers, but it really doesn't give pointers justice (especially when dealing with arrays and dynamic memory!) Every student learning C should have a basic idea about the stack and the heap, how function calls work, and how assembly code is executed, in order to get the full picture. Anyways, the problem C++ has for beginners is that the language tries to obscure the already hard to understand low-level behavior with high-level concepts (to be fair, that is the language's ultimate goal: to provide a high-level abstraction for low-level code.) So maybe good for your second/third language, but definitely not your first.

shereadsthenews 8y ago
> I always think C/C++ is not a good first language to teach, because you need to understand some general concepts about computer systems before diving in. Some believe that it's important to teach those things about computer systems first. To anyone who knows how the machine works it's pretty obvious why a primitive stack variable is uninitialized: initializing them would cost a store which would in most cases be pointless. People use C and C++ because they want all of the performance the machine has to offer, and usually more. Stuffing the program full of immediate value loads and stores would make it huge and slow. C++ is already cursed with enough pointless stores, for example initializing the buffer of a string just after resize and just before copying something else into the same memory. We don't need more of these things. The author then goes on to complain at length about {} initializers in C++11, which everyone recognizes as problematic, and which has been partially fixed in C++14. This has basically nothing to do with the first part of the article.
ChrisSD 8y ago
I think it's better to teach basic assembly before C. Using memory addresses makes so much more sense in assembly. But for a first language I'd want to use something like Python or Javascript or even a toy language. It simply needs to be something where some basic, high level concepts can be taught without worrying about the details.
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  Yeah, there is really no need to be scared of assembly. It is easy to learn because there is not much to it. Only writing nontrivial programs in assembly is hard, and you don't need to do that to understand what's going on behind the scenes in compiled code.
  - a1369209993 8y ago
    > Only writing nontrivial programs in assembly is hard It's not even really hard, just crushingly tedious and error-prone. You could also write all your programs on 80-column punch cards or with (1)ed, but why bother if there isn't some technical reason why a text editor isn't available?
shams93 8y ago
Yeah even in the old days Pascal was the language of choice for beginners. Now pythin holds that position although some schools teach java or c# as a first language many use python these days.
williamdclt 8y ago
I learnt C as a first language, and those computer sytems concept were explained as we go. It's not that hard to understand what memory is and that variables values are stored there, and I've had no problem with pointers. And the big advantage is that when you understand those concept and pointers, there's no magic in other languages (value/reference parameters, objects, functions as first-class citizens)
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Totally agree. Knowing C and a little assembly takes out the magic from other higher level languages. That's a good thing.
  - angry_octet 8y ago
    Monads are still a little magical though.
    - Gibbon1 8y ago
      I keep thinking that C could support monads with a little work.
      - MikeLui 8y ago
        "Programmable semicolons."
      - geezerjay 8y ago
        As I see it, adding lambda/anonymous functions would have a transformative impact on the whole language. Adding them to C++ had a similar impact although the language offered some ways to get around the limitation.
        maxxxxx 8y ago
        Very true. When I look at C# pretty much all the cool stuff they have added relies on lambdas and closures. Same for JavaScript. It's the one feature that enables a ton of other features.
int_19h 8y ago
On the contrary, properly teaching pointers can do wonders to help people understand how memory is structured. C and C++ are horrible academic languages for other reasons - the original design is just too much of a hack to begin with, and then there's decades of legacy backwards compatibility with it in all newer developments. Syntax is ugly and inconsistent, doing things right is often harder than doing them wrong, there are many features and exceptions that are only there for historical reasons, and standard library is very eclectic in terms of what is and isn't included (from a modern perspective). But take something like Modula-2, and pointers aren't a problem.

shereadsthenews 8y ago

> I always think C/C++ is not a good first language to teach, because you need to understand some general concepts about computer systems before diving in. Some believe that it's important to teach those things about computer systems first. To anyone who knows how the machine works it's pretty obvious why a primitive stack variable is uninitialized: initializing them would cost a store which would in most cases be pointless. People use C and C++ because they want all of the performance the machine has to offer, and usually more. Stuffing the program full of immediate value loads and stores would make it huge and slow. C++ is already cursed with enough pointless stores, for example initializing the buffer of a string just after resize and just before copying something else into the same memory. We don't need more of these things. The author then goes on to complain at length about {} initializers in C++11, which everyone recognizes as problematic, and which has been partially fixed in C++14. This has basically nothing to do with the first part of the article.

ChrisSD 8y ago

I think it's better to teach basic assembly before C. Using memory addresses makes so much more sense in assembly. But for a first language I'd want to use something like Python or Javascript or even a toy language. It simply needs to be something where some basic, high level concepts can be taught without worrying about the details.

ahartmetz 8y ago
Yeah, there is really no need to be scared of assembly. It is easy to learn because there is not much to it. Only writing nontrivial programs in assembly is hard, and you don't need to do that to understand what's going on behind the scenes in compiled code.
- a1369209993 8y ago
  > Only writing nontrivial programs in assembly is hard It's not even really hard, just crushingly tedious and error-prone. You could also write all your programs on 80-column punch cards or with (1)ed, but why bother if there isn't some technical reason why a text editor isn't available?

shams93 8y ago

Yeah even in the old days Pascal was the language of choice for beginners. Now pythin holds that position although some schools teach java or c# as a first language many use python these days.

williamdclt 8y ago

I learnt C as a first language, and those computer sytems concept were explained as we go. It's not that hard to understand what memory is and that variables values are stored there, and I've had no problem with pointers. And the big advantage is that when you understand those concept and pointers, there's no magic in other languages (value/reference parameters, objects, functions as first-class citizens)

maxxxxx 8y ago
Totally agree. Knowing C and a little assembly takes out the magic from other higher level languages. That's a good thing.
- angry_octet 8y ago
  Monads are still a little magical though.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    I keep thinking that C could support monads with a little work.
    - MikeLui 8y ago
      "Programmable semicolons."
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      As I see it, adding lambda/anonymous functions would have a transformative impact on the whole language. Adding them to C++ had a similar impact although the language offered some ways to get around the limitation.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        Very true. When I look at C# pretty much all the cool stuff they have added relies on lambdas and closures. Same for JavaScript. It's the one feature that enables a ton of other features.

int_19h 8y ago

On the contrary, properly teaching pointers can do wonders to help people understand how memory is structured. C and C++ are horrible academic languages for other reasons - the original design is just too much of a hack to begin with, and then there's decades of legacy backwards compatibility with it in all newer developments. Syntax is ugly and inconsistent, doing things right is often harder than doing them wrong, there are many features and exceptions that are only there for historical reasons, and standard library is very eclectic in terms of what is and isn't included (from a modern perspective). But take something like Modula-2, and pointers aren't a problem.