02-14-2003, 05:54 PM
Hi,
I presume this is in reply to me. If not, well then I'll just butt in. ;)
If you want a pretty good language background, I'd recommend looking at:
Smalltalk for a good OOPs language done right.
LISP for a good AI language.
PostScipt for a good (and useful) threaded interpretive language.
Fortran 77 for a good algebraic language.
A couple of assembly languages to get a feel for things at that level (although they aren't as necessary as they once were. Optimizing compilers do better than all but the best assembly programmers).
However, as long as the language you are using is powerful enough to support decent data structures, it doesn't much matter what you use. To become a good programmer (as opposed to just a good coder) concentrate on algorithms and data structures. A couple of good books are Numerical Recipes in XXX where XXX is C, C++, and a bunch more languages (proving that the language doesn't much matter) and Art of Computer Programming by Knuth (both volumes).
There are a lot of other good books out there, mostly on narrow topics like cryptography, graphics, matrix manipulations, etc. Go to your library and do a search (or, if they've got their catalog online, do a search then go to your library :) ) Pick up a few books on these topics and read through them fast. Get the general ideas and a feel for the topics. You can always do a deeper search when a particular problem raises it's head.
But remember -- have fun. Taking a problem and getting a computer to solve it is one of the best games around. Get good at it, and people will give you money to have fun ;)
--Pete
I presume this is in reply to me. If not, well then I'll just butt in. ;)
If you want a pretty good language background, I'd recommend looking at:
Smalltalk for a good OOPs language done right.
LISP for a good AI language.
PostScipt for a good (and useful) threaded interpretive language.
Fortran 77 for a good algebraic language.
A couple of assembly languages to get a feel for things at that level (although they aren't as necessary as they once were. Optimizing compilers do better than all but the best assembly programmers).
However, as long as the language you are using is powerful enough to support decent data structures, it doesn't much matter what you use. To become a good programmer (as opposed to just a good coder) concentrate on algorithms and data structures. A couple of good books are Numerical Recipes in XXX where XXX is C, C++, and a bunch more languages (proving that the language doesn't much matter) and Art of Computer Programming by Knuth (both volumes).
There are a lot of other good books out there, mostly on narrow topics like cryptography, graphics, matrix manipulations, etc. Go to your library and do a search (or, if they've got their catalog online, do a search then go to your library :) ) Pick up a few books on these topics and read through them fast. Get the general ideas and a feel for the topics. You can always do a deeper search when a particular problem raises it's head.
But remember -- have fun. Taking a problem and getting a computer to solve it is one of the best games around. Get good at it, and people will give you money to have fun ;)
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?