

Which programming language should I learn first? - sonic0002
http://pixelstech.net/article/index.php?id=1335686357

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xd
"To feel depressed: SQL"

SQL isn't a programming language you would learn to program general purpose
programs with. It's a language to manage relational data in a database.

It's not a depressing language. Depressing, is watching a programmer fight
with procedural ORM when doing anything remotely complicated with data in a
relational database.

~~~
bunderbunder
Well, there's one bit about SQL which is depressing, and that's the way that
the language has been undone by its own fragmentation.

Each dialect of SQL is different enough from all the others that the lowest
common denominator - the version that you can really call 'SQL' and not
'PL/SQL', 'T-SQL' or whatever - is really, really low. So most the tutorials
on 'SQL' out there present the language as a dumb insertion and retrieval
mechanism rather than the powerful declarative programming language for query
and analytics that it really is. Meaning most programmers out there really
don't know what they're losing when they choose to go with the naive approach
to relational databases that ORMs encourage.

I got led down that path first. And I spent a lot of time struggling with the
ORM. And then somebody or something finally convinced me to take the time to
learn SQL. Not that least-common-denominator crap - real SQL, the native
dialect of my DBMS and all of its ins and outs.

And soon after, once I had properly encapsulated the database with well-
written stored procedures and all that, I dumped the ORM, because it had
become the stone in the soup. And everything got so much better, so much more
performant, so much easier to maintain, so quickly. And I remembered all the
struggling from before, and saw that none of it had to happen. And I mourned
for all the wasted time and gray hairs.

I learned SQL, and it made me feel depressed.

------
calibwam
> To be a god which can do everything--Assembly A god that uses more time than
> necessary doing some tasks, but when they run, it's so fast.

~~~
IsTom
As for current architectures, humans are really bad at writing assembly.
Advanced compilers like gcc are much better at it.

------
tzs
FRACTRAN. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRACTRAN>

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mackyinc
I started at PHP and still learning.

------
lectrick
> To mingle with programmers who call themselves “rockstars”: Ruby.

Oh fuck off. I'm really getting tired of the Ruby backlash. It is a FINE
language, better than most.

------
stephengillie
Cute.

~~~
jhuni
I don't think the Cute programming language is ready to be used as a first
time target for developers yet. Try scheme.

~~~
sonic0002
What is Cute programming language?

~~~
radicalbyte
It's a Cool variant designed specifically to encourage female students into
Software Engineering and/or Computer Science.

~~~
stephengillie
Serious?

