I think beginners should start with C. It's strict, doesn't allow sloppy code, forces the importance of Type down your throat, the use of pointers are the most straight forward way to understand memory, and has some of the best debugging tools in the industry. Starting with Python is just going to lead to greater frustrations down the road.
I agree, when you get started with C you will grasp concepts of reference (pointers), static and dynamic memory allocation, memory leaks and manual memory deallocation. It is a simple language, yet so powerful at the backend. I build my first spellchecker with it. I actually started with Fortran and I failed badly during my physics degree because I could not grasp the fundamental programming concepts - I was a rookie. I believed for many years I was not good at programming - which probably accounts for most of us biological beings as we are not accustomed to work like a computer. Then I did some C# and ASP.NET and honestly it was a painful experience for me because quite a lot of low level concepts were abstracted away, which is fine but you somehow don't learn the fundamentals. Now I am doing Python and still have to go few levels down and learn/re-learn the fundamentals but I am getting more comfortable, but now I understand the limitations of strict dynamic typing. I would like to pick up new languages but for now I would like to master Python. I know EcmaScript fairly well but I also played a just bit with Racket/Scala/Haskell/c++/Java - I love Racket.
C teaches a lot of really valuable lessons and I agree that it's a great way to learn how memory works. I 100% recommend learning some C as a way to become a better programmer.
But do you need to know those things when you're learning how to write your first program? Definitely not.
int array[3];
//What if I use the wrong size? Or <=? C has no protections against accessing
//out of bounds memory, and by that I don't mean it errors out, it just accesses
//it, which is the leading cause of security bugs in software today
for(int index = 0; index < 3; ++index)
{
index[array] = index + 1;
//yes, the above is valid, works just like array[index], which is
//understandable if you know what it's doing and think about it
//( *(array + index) is commutative), but a beginner won't
printf("Value at index %d is %d\n", index, array[index]);
}
forces the importance of Type down your throat
char c = 30; // this won't even throw a warning
Plus you have void*, plus you can cast anything to anything else, and it'll just reinterpret the bytes whether it's valid or not. There's a reason C++ introduced static_cast, dynamic_cast, reinterpret_cast, const_cast so you can avoid doing c-style casts.
the use of pointers are the most straight forward way to understand memory
Leaning to use pointers correctly will help you understand memory, but you don't have to learn to use it correctly to get working code. Memory leaks is just another type of sloppy code C allows.
has some of the best debugging tools in the industry
Just about every bytecode language will have much better debugging tools. Editing code in a debugger to see the effect than moving the program counter will corrupt the stack in C debugging tools more often than it will work.
Pascal / Delphi is a much better learning programming language. The syntax actually forces you to think about many of these things, and then you can take those habits with you to C. Unfortunately the language fell out of favor even in the teaching context it was originally created for, and most universities get people started with Java or Python instead.
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I think beginners should start with C. It's strict, doesn't allow sloppy code, forces the importance of Type down your throat, the use of pointers are the most straight forward way to understand memory, and has some of the best debugging tools in the industry. Starting with Python is just going to lead to greater frustrations down the road.
I agree, when you get started with C you will grasp concepts of reference (pointers), static and dynamic memory allocation, memory leaks and manual memory deallocation. It is a simple language, yet so powerful at the backend. I build my first spellchecker with it. I actually started with Fortran and I failed badly during my physics degree because I could not grasp the fundamental programming concepts - I was a rookie. I believed for many years I was not good at programming - which probably accounts for most of us biological beings as we are not accustomed to
worklike a computer. Then I did some C# and ASP.NET and honestly it was a painful experience for me because quite a lot of low level concepts were abstracted away, which is fine but you somehow don't learn the fundamentals. Now I am doing Python and still have to go few levels down and learn/re-learn the fundamentals but I am getting more comfortable, but now I understand the limitations of strict dynamic typing. I would like to pick up new languages but for now I would like to master Python. I know EcmaScript fairly well but I also played a just bit with Racket/Scala/Haskell/c++/Java - I love Racket.C teaches a lot of really valuable lessons and I agree that it's a great way to learn how memory works. I 100% recommend learning some C as a way to become a better programmer.
But do you need to know those things when you're learning how to write your first program? Definitely not.
Nope. C has too many pitfalls. There are libraries full of books about C pitfalls! (and let's not mention C++).
I love C, but C is none of those things.
C has macros
int array[3];
//What if I use the wrong size? Or <=? C has no protections against accessing
//out of bounds memory, and by that I don't mean it errors out, it just accesses
//it, which is the leading cause of security bugs in software today
for(int index = 0; index < 3; ++index)
{
index[array] = index + 1;
//yes, the above is valid, works just like array[index], which is
//understandable if you know what it's doing and think about it
//( *(array + index) is commutative), but a beginner won't
printf("Value at index %d is %d\n", index, array[index]);
}
char c = 30; // this won't even throw a warning
Plus you have void*, plus you can cast anything to anything else, and it'll just reinterpret the bytes whether it's valid or not. There's a reason C++ introduced static_cast, dynamic_cast, reinterpret_cast, const_cast so you can avoid doing c-style casts.
Leaning to use pointers correctly will help you understand memory, but you don't have to learn to use it correctly to get working code. Memory leaks is just another type of sloppy code C allows.
Just about every bytecode language will have much better debugging tools. Editing code in a debugger to see the effect than moving the program counter will corrupt the stack in C debugging tools more often than it will work.
Pascal / Delphi is a much better learning programming language. The syntax actually forces you to think about many of these things, and then you can take those habits with you to C. Unfortunately the language fell out of favor even in the teaching context it was originally created for, and most universities get people started with Java or Python instead.