Re: Suitability of Lua as a First Programming Language?

[Coda Highland <chighland@...>]

Pascal was designed as a language for teaching structured programming,
but IT ended up being used for professional software engineering.

I don't know if you can necessarily say it's SUITABLE for the task ;)
but it definitely saw a lot of use.

/s/ Adam

On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 1:49 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@znmeb.net> wrote:
> This "debate" has been going on since there *were* programming
> languages. Logo, BASIC and now Scratch were specifically designed to
> get youngsters into programming. *None* of the "kids' programming
> languages" was *ever* suitable for professional software engineering.
> Python, Lua, Visual Basic and most other languages are.
>
> On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Pierre Chapuis <catwell@archlinux.us> wrote:
>> I think you cannot teach CS correctly with just one language.
>> If I had to teach it I would choose Python as a first language
>> though. The reason is that Python is more structured than Lua,
>> and also more close to pseudocode. It is a perfect way to teach
>> algorithms, and you can get up to speed and do real things
>> quickly with it.
>>
>> Then I would teach C, because it is still the best way to
>> learn data structures. I do not think can understand CS if you
>> do not understand memory management, pointers... Also, Unix.
>>
>> Then I would teach LISP, the Maxwell Equations of Software.
>> C makes you understand what you do from the point of view of
>> the computer, LISP makes you understand what you do in
>> theory and understand the power of abstraction.
>>
>> Finally, I may teach something like Haskell. Programmers should
>> understand typing, the equivalent of homogeneity in math.
>>
>> In my opinion Lua is not best learned in a class. It is best
>> learned by reading the manual. Especially in a printed version.
>> When you have it into your hands you think "Is that really all
>> there is to it?" Yes, it is all there is to it. Lua is a jewel,
>> a wonder of software design and you choose to use it when you
>> realize that. But you cannot realize it if if you have not used
>> other languages first.
>>
>> That being said there is something I think Lua is the perfect
>> language to teach: Object Orientation. Because to use OO in Lua
>> you implement it, and you understand it is not something so
>> complicated. You also understand objects can be seen in two
>> ways: structures with related methods (the x:foo() style) and
>> closures (the x.foo() style).
>>
>> --
>> Pierre Chapuis
>>
>>
>
>
>
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