Relearning C

The first computer language I learned was BASIC and I was in the 8th grade. It was fun to get the computer to do various things but I really enjoyed my next class which taught me Pascal. When I got to college, I learned a few more computer programing languages including C. I would have to say that C remains as my favorite language for a number of reasons.

Recently I started a new personal project and have chosen to do it in C. I thought about using something a little more modern like Python or Perl but need something that compiles to an incredibly fast program. The tradeoff is that I will have to spend more time writing code. It also means I will have to relearn many of the things I have forgotten about C.

C is one of those languages that has a lot of flexibility but also has a lot of pitfalls. Today I was working with pointers and made a minor mistake on the syntax. Because pointers are so flexible, the syntax was correct, I just wasn't getting the results I was expecting. I used an Internet search engine to look up various examples with no success. It turns out, I needed to include some parenthesis around one small section of code. I came up with the solution after thinking about the results I was getting for a while. Then things started working correctly.

Some might be discouraged by such an experience, but not me. I just realized that I need to do some relearning and that is one of the reasons I started this project. It is my understanding that colleges and universities have moved towards teaching Java instead of C and I think that is a mistake. If it was up to me, everyone would learn C as their first computer programming language. There is something about having to work hard to get your program running. It has a bit of a learning curve, but allows you to write complex programs that run really fast.