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D - Newbie

reply "Anderw" <crxace13 comcast.net> writes:
I am a Newbie in every since of the word when it comes to programming!  I
would love to develop a solid foundation with a reliable compiler.  Having
read a few newsgroup postings on C++, it's apparent that the language leaves
much to be desired. Then I stumble onto D which promises? many improvements
over C++.  How best should a "complete" novice approach this language and
where would one turn for help when necessary.  Additionally, I noticed that
current version of D available is an alpha version that wasn't intended for
use beyond 1999. Is there a beta version intended for the near future?

Andrew
May 31 2002
next sibling parent reply "Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> writes:
"Anderw" <crxace13 comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ad9kvv$1c1n$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 I am a Newbie in every since of the word when it comes to programming!  I
 would love to develop a solid foundation with a reliable compiler.  Having
 read a few newsgroup postings on C++, it's apparent that the language




 much to be desired. Then I stumble onto D which promises? many




 over C++.  How best should a "complete" novice approach this language and
 where would one turn for help when necessary.



While D is a far better language to learn on than C++, there are currently a
river of helpful books and materials to teach you C++, and very little for D
beyond this newsgroup.


  Additionally, I noticed that
 current version of D available is an alpha version that wasn't intended




 use beyond 1999. Is there a beta version intended for the near future?



I don't know of any y2k bugs in the compiler, but all that proves is the
test suite is inadequate <g>.
May 31 2002
parent reply "Anderw" <crxace13 comcast.net> writes:
  Additionally, I noticed that
 current version of D available is an alpha version that wasn't intended




 use beyond 1999. Is there a beta version intended for the near future?



 I don't know of any y2k bugs in the compiler, but all that proves is the
 test suite is inadequate <g>.



statement made by the license that accompanies the compiler which reads as
follows:

"The Software is not generally available software. It as not undergone
testing and may contain errors. The Software was not designed to operate
after December 31, 1999." . . .

The full document is attached!
Jun 01 2002
parent reply "Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> writes:
"Anderw" <crxace13 comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ad9rol$1m40$1 digitaldaemon.com...

  Additionally, I noticed that
 current version of D available is an alpha version that wasn't










 for

 use beyond 1999. Is there a beta version intended for the near future?



 I don't know of any y2k bugs in the compiler, but all that proves is the
 test suite is inadequate <g>.



 statement made by the license that accompanies the compiler which reads as
 follows:

 "The Software is not generally available software. It as not undergone
 testing and may contain errors. The Software was not designed to operate
 after December 31, 1999." . . .

 The full document is attached!



It's just a disclaimer. If it bothers you, don't use it!
Jun 01 2002
next sibling parent reply "Andrew" <crxace13 comcast.net> writes:
 It's just a disclaimer. If it bothers you, don't use it!



Walter: please be assured I had no intentions of insulting your ego or hurt
your pride in any way.  I am simply enthused about starting out programming
with the best tool available and am seeking some professional opinions on
the likelihood of being successful if I start with this language.

Please stop attacking me on such trivial details. If you think I am a moron,
which you obviously do, just ignore my postings, but thus far you have not
helped in any way. Just be happy that you were able to create something that
a complete novice is interested in learning over a more established
language.

Thank you in advance!
Jun 01 2002
parent reply "anderson" <anderson firestar.com.au> writes:
I do not want to detract your attention from the user-friendly ness of D but
perhaps a learning language such as Basic (Qbasic, Visual Basic) would be
more adequate to your needs. The disadvantage of basic is that It's more
difficult to do advanced things in it.

On the other hand you can probably pick up a C++ book and use that to learn
D, though you won't find a D book. You could use this news group to fingure
out the differnces. Furthermore many people have learnt C before tackling
C++.

"Andrew" <crxace13 comcast.net> wrote in message
news:adadnt$a86$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 It's just a disclaimer. If it bothers you, don't use it!



 Walter: please be assured I had no intentions of insulting your ego or




 your pride in any way.  I am simply enthused about starting out




 with the best tool available and am seeking some professional opinions on
 the likelihood of being successful if I start with this language.

 Please stop attacking me on such trivial details. If you think I am a




 which you obviously do, just ignore my postings, but thus far you have not
 helped in any way. Just be happy that you were able to create something




 a complete novice is interested in learning over a more established
 language.

 Thank you in advance!
Jun 01 2002
next sibling parent reply C.R.Chafer <blackmarlin nospam.asean-mail.com> writes:
anderson wrote:


 I do not want to detract your attention from the user-friendly ness of D
 but perhaps a learning language such as Basic (Qbasic, Visual Basic) would
 be more adequate to your needs. The disadvantage of basic is that It's
 more difficult to do advanced things in it.



Ewwww. No. To give a quote...

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students 
that have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are 
mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
-Dijkstra

(having said that however I must note that I first learned to programme in 
BASIC on the ZX Spectrum many many years ago,  though I have been doing 
mostly assembler, oomic, C and java since then).


 On the other hand you can probably pick up a C++ book and use that to
 learn D, though you won't find a D book. You could use this news group to
 fingure out the differnces. Furthermore many people have learnt C before
 tackling C++.



As you, Andrew, are a beginner I would advise learning either C or Java.  
By the time you have got the syntax and conventions fully understood (2 to 
8 months depending on your level of experience, time put into learning and 
practice, etcetera), then D should be in Beta version (hopefully) and the 
transition to the new syntax should be relatively painless.

Of course you could try learning with D but at the moment it is still a bit 
of a moving target - though I would expect few, if any, major changes at 
this point.


 "Andrew" <crxace13 comcast.net> wrote in message
 news:adadnt$a86$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 It's just a disclaimer. If it bothers you, don't use it!



 Walter: please be assured I had no intentions of insulting your
 ego or hurt your pride in any way.  I am simply enthused about
 starting out programming with the best tool available and am
 seeking some professional opinions on the likelihood of being
 successful if I start with this language.






I think it was a case of ask a silly question ...
In my opinion the license looks as if it has been tacked on from something 
else just due to the need for a licence - most of the documentation around 
the D project needs updating,  and the licence appears to be one of the 
main things (I am surprised to find anyone bothering to read the license 
anyway) - the trouble is we are here to express our opinions in the design 
of the D programming language, documentation and licencing is rather a side 
issue compared to getting a good working compiler.


 Please stop attacking me on such trivial details. If you think I am a
 moron, which you obviously do, just ignore my postings, but thus
 far you have not helped in any way. Just be happy that you were
 able to create something that a complete novice is interested in
 learning over a more established language.






If you are going to post on a usenet style news group you are bound to get 
flamed every now and then, but compared to others this group is fairly 
benign - just try posting something off topic in comp.lang.c for an 
unfriendly response :-)

The problem with learning D without prior knowledge of other programming 
languages is that there is a lack of documentation, if you want to go ahead 
an learn it that is good.  However,  the documentation is sometimes 
inconsistant with the compiler - I am sure that if you have any queries 
about the language itself the people in this group will help,  and an 
overview of errors and poorly explained details in the documentation from 
someone without programming experience, I believe, would be helpful.  When 
you have been programming for many years many of these things seem obvious, 
though that is no always so for a novice.

C 2002/6/1
Jun 01 2002
next sibling parent reply C.R.Chafer <blackmarlin nospam.asean-mail.com> writes:
And just to illustrate my point here is an example of bad/silly 
documentation from a company which has been around long enough to know 
better...


"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; 
instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the 
variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead 
of the longer form of the constant.
This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change."
- FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers 


'should the value of pi change' - yes, like that is really going to happen 
:-)


C 2002/6/1
Jun 01 2002
parent "Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> writes:
"C.R.Chafer" <blackmarlin nospam.asean-mail.com> wrote in message
news:adapdp$nvt$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants;
 instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the
 variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead
 of the longer form of the constant.
 This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi




 - FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers

 'should the value of pi change' - yes, like that is really going to happen
 :-)



Oh, I think that is just a little joke inserted in by the manual writer to
see if his boss was proofreading it <g>. In a job I had many years ago, I
wrote a 300 step test procedure for a mechanical device. The last step was
"now it's miller time". My boss complained about it, I countered by saying I
was just checking that the proofreader was doing his job <g>.
Jun 01 2002
prev sibling parent "Pavel Minayev" <evilone omen.ru> writes:
"C.R.Chafer" <blackmarlin nospam.asean-mail.com> wrote in message
news:adaov6$nkp$1 digitaldaemon.com...


 Ewwww. No. To give a quote...

 "It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students
 that have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are
 mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
 -Dijkstra



Modern BASIC dialects (VB, Rapid-Q, XBasic etc) have almost nothing to do
with
the '70 old-style BASIC.
Jun 02 2002
prev sibling parent reply "Andrew" <crxace13 comcast.net> writes:
I'd like to thank both Anderson and C.R.Chafer for your responses.  And now
that I have a better idea of where to begin, I'm off to a bookstore to pick
up something from the C++ section! Any suggestions?

"anderson" <anderson firestar.com.au> wrote in message
news:adahc3$g9g$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 I do not want to detract your attention from the user-friendly ness of D




 perhaps a learning language such as Basic (Qbasic, Visual Basic) would be
 more adequate to your needs. The disadvantage of basic is that It's more
 difficult to do advanced things in it.

 On the other hand you can probably pick up a C++ book and use that to




 D, though you won't find a D book. You could use this news group to




 out the differnces. Furthermore many people have learnt C before tackling
 C++.

 "Andrew" <crxace13 comcast.net> wrote in message
 news:adadnt$a86$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 It's just a disclaimer. If it bothers you, don't use it!



 Walter: please be assured I had no intentions of insulting your ego or




 your pride in any way.  I am simply enthused about starting out




 with the best tool available and am seeking some professional opinions







 the likelihood of being successful if I start with this language.

 Please stop attacking me on such trivial details. If you think I am a




 which you obviously do, just ignore my postings, but thus far you have







 helped in any way. Just be happy that you were able to create something




 a complete novice is interested in learning over a more established
 language.

 Thank you in advance!
Jun 01 2002
next sibling parent reply "Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> writes:
"Andrew" <crxace13 comcast.net> wrote in message
news:adc2vk$23ad$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 I'd like to thank both Anderson and C.R.Chafer for your responses.  And




 that I have a better idea of where to begin, I'm off to a bookstore to




 up something from the C++ section! Any suggestions?



Sure. www.digitalmars.com/ugr/chapter1.html
Jun 02 2002
parent andy <acoliver apache.org> writes:
I like this: http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/C/

-Andy

Walter wrote:

 "Andrew" <crxace13 comcast.net> wrote in message
 news:adc2vk$23ad$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 

I'd like to thank both Anderson and C.R.Chafer for your responses.  And



 now
 

that I have a better idea of where to begin, I'm off to a bookstore to



 pick
 

up something from the C++ section! Any suggestions?



 
 Sure. www.digitalmars.com/ugr/chapter1.html
Jun 02 2002
prev sibling parent user domain.invalid writes:
Andrew wrote:

 I'd like to thank both Anderson and C.R.Chafer for your responses.  And now
 that I have a better idea of where to begin, I'm off to a bookstore to pick
 up something from the C++ section! Any suggestions?



Yes,

1.) Want to become an expert in C++? buy 'The C++ Progrqamming 
Language' from Bjarne Stroustrup.
2.) Just want to have a jumpstart into C++ programming buy 
'Accelerated C++' by Andrew Koenig & Barbara E. Moo.
Jun 02 2002
prev sibling parent andy <acoliver apache.org> writes:
 
 
 It's just a disclaimer. If it bothers you, don't use it!
 
 




Or just set your computers clock back ;-)
Jun 01 2002
prev sibling parent "OddesE" <OddesE_XYZ hotmail.com> writes:
"Anderw" <crxace13 comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ad9kvv$1c1n$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 I am a Newbie in every since of the word when it comes to programming!  I
 would love to develop a solid foundation with a reliable compiler.  Having
 read a few newsgroup postings on C++, it's apparent that the language




 much to be desired. Then I stumble onto D which promises? many




 over C++.  How best should a "complete" novice approach this language and
 where would one turn for help when necessary.  Additionally, I noticed




 current version of D available is an alpha version that wasn't intended




 use beyond 1999. Is there a beta version intended for the near future?

 Andrew




I would start with Java instead of C++. Although I
am more of a C++ fan than a Java fan myself, it is
pretty widely accepted that Java is easier to learn.
Things like string/array-handling and garbage
collection are making Java a much more easy language
to start with. Memory management is not easy, and
one of the biggest source of bugs in C/C++ programs.
Furthermore C++ relies pretty heavily on pointers.
Learning C++ is like a jump in the deep end. If
you survive, you will probably be able to cope with
anything... :)
Also, D's feature set is a lot more like Java then
like C++, and the syntax for all three languages is
pretty similar, so that is why I would favour Java
if your objective was to learn D as fast as possible.


--
Stijn
OddesE_XYZ hotmail.com
http://OddesE.cjb.net
_________________________________________________
Remove _XYZ from my address when replying by mail
Jun 16 2002