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On Sun, 18 Jul 2010, Simon Waters wrote:
On 18/07/10 02:02, Rob Beard wrote:Dunno, when I've tried to learn C, C++ and Pascal in the past I've always got frustrated, maybe it's because I was impatient.I meant languages which are very different in concept. I found switching from procedural languages to SAS (which is similar to SQL in mentality) hard, in the my thought processes were wrong. Where as C to Pascal I think the shift is more syntax than substance, which can confuse the muscle memory but similar types of "tasks" are easy or hard. Where as with SQL/SAS languages tasks like duplicate detection become harder, whilst many tasks involving sorting and grouping are completely trivial. I was trying to learn Haskell a while back, but again the switch is hard, and I got disappointed with Fibonacci series programs which were only marginally faster to run than doing it on a calculator. On the other hand I suspect functional languages will be a growing thing, as we ship more of the "how to" into the tools (which will inevitably do it better than we would).
Sounds similar to me - I suspect your brain gets hard-wired into procedural/functional style early on! I probably wrote far too much assembler in my youth...
I did try to learn prolog way back though - and I spent a summer working with some bods at Edinburgh uny who were into it, but it just didn't "stick". I never got on with OO either - even after spending a year working for a games company writing c++ (advice: never work for a games company if you want to stay sane!)
If you've got time to spare, then this site: http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/is ... fun. There's an entry by me in there, but I'll leave it up to you to find it...
Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq