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Peter J. Holzer  
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 More options Nov 1 2012, 7:42 am
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc
From: "Peter J. Holzer" <hjp-usen...@hjp.at>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2012 12:42:31 +0100
Local: Thurs, Nov 1 2012 7:42 am
Subject: Re: lerning perl
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On 2012-10-31 15:10, Justin C <justin.1...@purestblue.com> wrote:

> On 2012-10-30, Jürgen Exner <jurge...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> "Bill Cunningham" <nos...@nspam.invalid> wrote:
>>>[...] Even knowing how to program things in C I don't know
>>>algorithms and that's needed for proper programing.

>> In other words: you are and have been putting the cart before the horse.
>> Maybe you should look into learning programming first. Once you
>> understand that then switching to a different programming language is
>> usually the easy part (yes, there are exceptions).

> I feel a certain affinity with the OP. My first
> programming was punched cards (at school), after that
> I taught myself BASIC on a ZX Spectrum. I went on an
> 'Introduction to C course' intending to take the
> follow-on course but the college dropped it saying
> there was no demand. And there my education stopped
> until I bought Learning Perl.

> I've only ever learnt programming as part of learning
> a programming language. I'd never considered it
> possible to learn programming without a language
> being associated.

I don't think you can learn programming without a language (that would
be like learning to write novels without a language).

But you can't learn programming without algorithms either.

Programming is the art of finding algorithms and expressing them in a
formal language.

If you only learn what the elements of a programming language mean but
not how to put them together, you will never be able to program. If you
aren't able to analyse a problem, to find a repeatable way to solve the
problem (= an algorithm), you won't be able to program.

Actually writing down the algorithm in a specific language is easiest
part (although the devil can certainly be in the details), and it is
also mostly interchangable. If you understand a problem and its solution
and you can write it down in one language, you can also write it in any
other language with a little effort. (This is also apparent in the
existence of compilers: Compilers are programs which translate from one
programming language to another: They have existed for a long time, so
that's obviously a simple problem. But there are no programs which can
really program. So that's a hard problem which needs human creativity)

(I'm not even sure if everybody can learn to program: Some people just
don't seem to have the knack)

        hp

--
   _  | Peter J. Holzer    | Fluch der elektronischen Textverarbeitung:
|_|_) | Sysadmin WSR       | Man feilt solange an seinen Text um, bis
| |   | h...@hjp.at         | die Satzbestandteile des Satzes nicht mehr
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ | zusammenpaßt. -- Ralph Babel


 
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