[clue] Budding SW Engineers

Tue May 8 15:01:46 MDT 2012

I've started to read Land of Lisp, which appears to teach by showing how 
to write games.

On 5/8/12 2:50 PM, lsawyer at scsdenver.com wrote:
> With all this talk of programming, it has sparked more from the 
> interest I've had over the last couple of years. I'm just wondering if 
> there are books anyone knows of that can teach in a entertaining 
> manner. Perhaps by creating fun little programs one can use 
> immediately. Perhaps some type of cookbook of "Choose which program 
> interests you most" and learn along the way type of training. Similar 
> to some old electronics kits you could buy at Radio Shack. This would 
> not only be more enjoyable (compared to the many boring beginner 
> books), but also give immediate purpose to someone who doesn't have a 
> lot of free time, and when free time is available, would like to spend 
> it doing something fun. Anyone have any thoughts? I'm interested in C# 
> (Java), Pearl, but don't really have a preference on which language. 
> Just need to learn some techniques, what are Classes, Functions and 
> other Object Oriented things I always hear about, that sound important.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Larry
>
> PS. As mentioned several times in the past, I have an office in DTC 
> (Dry Creek and I-25) that I can make available to Installfests or 
> possibly meetups.
>
>     -------- Original Message --------
>     Subject: Re: [clue] Budding SW Engineers
>     From: Chris Fedde <chris at fedde.us <mailto:chris at fedde.us>>
>     Date: Mon, May 07, 2012 7:31 pm
>     To: "CLUE's mailing list" <clue at cluedenver.org
>     <mailto:clue at cluedenver.org>>
>
>     I suspect that anyone finishing a current vocational programming
>     degree will have seen quite a bit of Java. It's a good career skill to
>     have. The other half of the recent graduates have some set of
>     Microsoft tools under their belt: C#, VB, powershell, .net etc. but
>     for this discussion that whole universe is pretty much irrelevant.
>     C++ is a strong second on unix/linux especially with tools like QT
>     available to you. Pretty much all big applications environments use
>     either java or C++. But Gnome still hangs on to C and has been doing
>     a great job of keeping it relevant for linux programmers. As with all
>     these languages, modern C does not look much like what you used when
>     you worked your way through K&R.
>
>     I suspect that Javascript and the other parts of the HTML5 tool set
>     will become even more important to all of us as the browser becomes
>     the platform of chooice for even more UI. The maturation of the web
>     with things like Google apps, jQuery, and seems to be headed that
>     way. We'll still need "server side" languages but things like Node.js
>     give javascript interesting things to say there.
>
>     It's hard to become a competent Linux user without some exposure to
>     shell languages, pipes and the assorted tools. But these days
>     sed/awk/grep pipelines are less important than they once were. Tools
>     like Python, perl, ruby, lua etc live in this space too. Pick one,
>     buy the t-shirt forget about the others and go to town. You'll always
>     be stuck knowing something about the shell if you are more than a
>     casual linux user.
>
>     As an aside. It is useful to note that a pipeline involving lots of
>     small text processing tools in a producer-consumer chain is a great
>     way to get a parallelism bang out of your multi-core processor.
>     Modern linux processes take care of all the messy bits for you.
>
>     Then there are all the other contenders, R, Go, Haskel, Lisp/Scheme,
>     Prolog, Cloture, etc. Erlang, etc. In the end it comes down to
>     experience, background, taste, and which t-shirt you put on today.
>
>     I can't end without throwing in an aphorism: "The determined Real
>     Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language." Ed Post.
>     http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html
>     <http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/%7Eelf/hack/realmen.html>
>
>     This got a bit longer than expected. Thanks for the prompt.
>     chris
>
>     On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 11:57 AM, David L. Willson
>     <DLWillson at thegeek.nu <mailto:DLWillson at thegeek.nu>> wrote:
>     > I can't count the number of times I've been asked, "What is the best
>     > programming language? Which one should I learn first?"
>     >
>     > I can answer now, with some confidence.
>     >
>     > Learn them all, but start with Python, because it's easy, fun,
>     and highly
>     > capable out-of-the box.
>     >
>     > Next, if you want to get further away from the OS, go Java. If
>     you want to
>     > get closer to the OS, go bash.
>     >
>     > And enough JavaScript and perl to get by on.
>     >
>     > --
>     > David L. Willson
>     > Trainer, Engineer, Enthusiast
>     > RHCE Network+ A+ Linux+ LPIC-1 Ubuntu
>     > Mobile 720-333-LANS(5267)
>     >
>     > This is a good time for a r3volution.
>     >
>     >
>     > _______________________________________________
>     > clue mailing list: clue at cluedenver.org <mailto:clue at cluedenver.org>
>     > For information, account preferences, or to unsubscribe see:
>     > http://cluedenver.org/mailman/listinfo/clue
>     _______________________________________________
>     clue mailing list: clue at cluedenver.org <mailto:clue at cluedenver.org>
>     For information, account preferences, or to unsubscribe see:
>     http://cluedenver.org/mailman/listinfo/clue
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> clue mailing list: clue at cluedenver.org
> For information, account preferences, or to unsubscribe see:
> http://cluedenver.org/mailman/listinfo/clue

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://cluedenver.org/pipermail/clue/attachments/20120508/5e607f61/attachment.html 