Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Education

Try many programming languages

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One of the main reasons to use Linux (or any Unix-inspired operating system like FreeBSD or Mac OS X) is the sheer number of programming languages that you can install, learn and use freely:

In his very influential essay, “Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years”, Peter Norvig states:

“Learn at least a half dozen programming languages. Include one language that supports class abstractions (like Java or C++), one that supports functional abstraction (like Lisp or ML), one that supports syntactic abstraction (like Lisp), one that supports declarative specifications (like Prolog or C++ templates), one that supports coroutines (like Icon or Scheme), and one that supports parallelism (like Sisal).”

I do not always agree with the specific languages he mentions but the important point is that all great programmers know (or, at least, are aware of) the many programming paradigms that exist (functional, imperative, object-oriented, generic, logic, concurrent, distributed, etc.)

This is important because some real-life problems can be easily solved if a programming language supporting a specific paradigm is used and, conversely, very very difficult to solve if the bad language is chosen. Don’t forget that:

“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer,
to treat everything as if it were a nail.” – Abraham Maslow

Here is a commented list of the many programming languages that I have installed in my Kubuntu Linux computer:

Language Implementation Comments
C KDevelop (using gcc) Linux is written in C…
C++ KDevelop (using g++) Much too complicated for my taste
C# MonoDevelop (using the Mono/.NET framework) Looks a lot like Java to me :-)
Boo MonoDevelop (using the Mono/.NET framework) I’m discovering it now…
Nemerle MonoDevelop (using the Mono/.NET framework) I’m discovering it now…
Erlang Erlang A functional language by Ericsson for distributed systems
Haskell Hugs A great pure and lazy functional language
Java BlueJ / Eclipse / Netbeans (all using a Sun JVM) A fantastic object-oriented (but too verbose) language with top-quality IDEs (you need to try BlueJ if you are a beginner)
Lisp CLISP Very powerful if you get into its more advanced features like macros but I personally prefer Scheme…
Objective Caml Objective Caml I’m discovering it now…
Python Eric / Idle One top language and Eric is a very good IDE. Learn it now!
Ruby Eric / Interactive Ruby My favourite programming language – it’s so nice and powerful at the same time!
Scheme DrScheme A great functional language to learn programming… and it’s poweful too. DrScheme is a fantastic IDE for beginners.
Smalltalk Squeak Addictive and powerful language. Try Squeak, it’s fun!

Have fun discovering some of those languages…

Lisp is different

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I love programming!

I’ve played with lots and lots of programming languages during the past 15 years (chronologically, BASIC -> Pascal -> C -> C++ -> Scheme -> Smalltalk -> Java -> Haskell -> Javascript -> PHP -> Python -> Ruby -> Lisp). Notice that I’ve used the term played. For me, programming is a very fun activity and I actually enjoy it…

As you know, I am a teacher. I teach Computer Science i.e. problem solving using modeling and programming. Unfortunately, I am not really satisfied with the currently fashionable Java language which is used a lot now for introductory programming courses. Java is a relatively good professional language but it should not be used for teaching problem solving and programming. Joel Spolsky has written a great article where he demolishes the concept of JavaSchools:

“But JavaSchools also fail to train the brains of kids to be adept, agile, and flexible enough to do good software design (and I don’t mean OO “design”, where you spend countless hours rewriting your code to rejiggle your object hierarchy, or you fret about faux “problems” like has-a vs. is-a). You need training to think of things at multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously, and that kind of thinking is exactly what you need to design great software architecture.”

Eric Raymond, in his famous article How To Become A Hacker, revealed that every programmer should learn Lisp because of “the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it. That experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use LISP itself a lot.”

He recommends learning different types of languages because “they represent very different approaches to programming, and each will educate you in valuable ways.”

Paul Graham has written a convincing article on how to become a better than average programmer by using Lisp. He queries: “What’s so great about Lisp? And if Lisp is so great, why doesn’t everyone use it? These sound like rhetorical questions, but actually they have straightforward answers. Lisp is so great not because of some magic quality visible only to devotees, but because it is simply the most powerful language available. And the reason everyone doesn’t use it is that programming languages are not merely technologies, but habits of mind as well, and nothing changes slower.”

My wish for 2006 is that more and more of my students at the University of Mauritius discover the real joys of problem solving and programming using nice languages like Smalltalk, Ruby and, especially, Lisp.

Happy New Year to you!

Image courtesy of Lisperati