As you all know, one of my interests is language learning. This now includes programming languages.
When I got my computer science degree, I didn’t concentrate on coding because I specialized in a different topic. But I feel like knowing how to code, even if it’s just writing small programs to automate repetitive tasks, is very useful for my career.
I wasn’t excited about coding in school because I just didn’t have enough time to really figure everything out. I was feeling very behind, since many (most) of the other students had been doing this kind of thing since they were children. I wasn’t lucky enough to have a computer growing up, and everything I learned was from using someone else’s computer every chance I got.
So I got out one of the dozen or so programming books I bought in college and went to work.
I chose C, which was really hard for me in school, but I compare it to learning Latin. If I had learned Latin first, subsequent languages would have been easier (Romance languages, of course). C has influenced many other programming languages, so I figure learning it will help me understand those languages later.
Because I also had trouble setting up compilers and programming environments in school, I decided to go the route of using Notepad++ and a shell that lets me interact with my computer by typing commands.
Notepad++ is a great open-source application that uses different colors to distinguish parts of the code and makes it easier to read. While C generally doesn’t care how you indent your code, it is really difficult to read your own work if you don’t use proper indentation and spacing. Especially for nested statements!
I have made it through six chapters of my book so far and have this childlike glee when I compile something that works. I also appreciate that the compiler, which translates my code into something the computer can run, displays error messages that often identify the line where something went wrong. At least I know where to start fixing it!
This is a deviation from the language learning I normally write about, but it is something I got excited about.
