[See orig. msg, below, if you need it.]
First, I'm delighted that you are enthusiastic about learning to
program: that's terrific, and I hope your enthusiasm will last through
the learning endeavor. Find yourself a good,
human consultant who has been through the snags and can buffer
some of the tight spots.
I have some concerns about your suggested starting place that I
hope you will take for what they're worth and use as your situation
dictates.
I generally like the ...for Dummies books, and applaud their
successful (at least in the Internet for... book) attempts to
introduce aspects of computing to a wider audience. Just don't
take the title to heart: nearly everyone struggles a little with
programming, especially at the start.
I've had a little experience with programming the Mac, and with
Think C (and a lot of experience programming other computers).
I wouldn't recommend either as a starting place. The Mac user
interface is supreme. The result is to make the machine
relatively hard to program. In addition, even though I was
an experienced programmer when I started, I managed to kill
the file directory structure and lose everything on the Mac
I was programming on, within the first month or two. If you
do go with the Mac, keep a backup of everything handy. (Perhaps
things are a little better with Mac's of modern vintage, but
I'd recommend you look for some confirmation of this from a
friend or associate.
In another thread, I already revealed my biases on beginning
places for programmers: I'd recommend you start with an easy
language and an easy programming system. If you really want to
start with C, there are several competent implementations that work
well for DOS, and some that have "easy" frameworks for getting
you started with Windows (Borland had a nice "EasyWin" structure
in their C/C++ package a couple of years ago.). I'd recommend
(even more highly) that you start with a simpler language,
such as BASIC, that is geared towards beginning programmers.
The whole operating and user-interaction structure is simpler
and easier to start with. You can then grapple with learning
the fundamentals of procedural programming first, and graduate
to another language later, as your needs and interests dictate.
Best wishes for a successful programming experience, whatever
route you choose...
William C. Mead
wcm@ansr.com
Visit Adaptive Network Solutions Research, Inc. on the web
at http://www.ansr.com/ansr !
=================================
Brenda Irvin <irvinb@nevada.edu> wrote:
>I bought the book, "Mac Programming for Dummies" and am excited about
>learning to program. The author suggests using the Think C compiler from
>Symantic, but it has been discontinued. :-(
>
>Does anybody have any advice for an eager beginner? Thanks.