ins_anmy@jhunix.UUCP (Norman Yarvin) (12/27/87)
In article <36598@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes a lot of good suggestions about buying a computer. I can't understand this though: >* Don't buy a computer to learn programming. If you ever want to program > a computer you own, learn programming *first*. Then you will know when > the programming environment a computer offers is usable. How is someone going to learn programming without a computer? Granted, Usenet people must have access to at least one. But the world at large does not. Don't tell me you are going to just sit there and read a book; very few have that much willpower. And even if someone did, would he/she learn anything about which computer to buy? Very little, probably. Norman Yarvin (seismo!umcp-cs | ihnp4!whuxcc | allegra!hopkins) !jhunix!ins_anmy "I can't really represent the size of the sun, but this should give you a good idea."
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (12/27/87)
In article <5834@jhunix.UUCP> ins_anmy@jhunix.UUCP (Norman Yarvin) writes: |>In article <36598@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes a lot |>of good suggestions about buying a computer. I can't understand this though: |> |>>* Don't buy a computer to learn programming. If you ever want to program |>> a computer you own, learn programming *first*. Then you will know when |>> the programming environment a computer offers is usable. |> |>How is someone going to learn programming without a computer? Granted, |>Usenet people must have access to at least one. But the world at large does |>not. Don't tell me you are going to just sit there and read a book; very |>few have that much willpower. And even if someone did, would he/she learn |>anything about which computer to buy? Very little, probably. I suggest that if you want to learn programming you take a class at a community college or through some other program where they provide the computer. The reason being that the things that make a computer easy to program, and the programs that make a computer useful may be a disjoint set. Have you ever programmed on a ZX81? Not much fun. Or maybe you buy a commodore 64 to learn programming, and then find out that you really want to program in C and no one makes a C compiler for it. Maybe COBOL is your idea of fun, that wipes out the Atari and Amiga right there. But the biggest danger is that you may discover you can't program, or hate to program and now you have this essentially worthless computer (remember the condition was that you bought it to learn programming). I know a lot of people who have bought computers, the ones that took a programming class were a lot happier. You learn a lot about computers when you take a programming class. It gives you an edge, I heard about a guy that bought a computer to program on that had only a line oriented editor because the salesman had convinced him that editors that supported editing on a "hard copy" terminal were more powerful than screen editors. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.