Hi!

> Probably the main barrier to D as a first language is lack of a good book on D :-(

I absolutely agree.
I think a well-written tutorial, like the ones for C and Pascal that I
remember made by Coronado Enterprises or something like this, freely
downloadable on the net, is the best thing.
If there are people starting programming with C, which is more difficult,
why not starting with D?
If I were a true programmer, I would write a complete tutorial myself, but I
have to admit that before teaching, I need to know the subject:)
But maybe a collective effort?

byez!

Carotinho

Anders F Björklund wrote:
> Charles Hixson wrote:
> 
>> When you are debugging code, print statements are your friends. Use them liberally.
> 
> 
> Just make sure to enclose them in "debug" statements, for any D code.
> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/version.html
Actually, I normally comment them out after they've served their purpose.  Debug is too global.

> 
> A much greater ally to have around is a source-level debugger, though.

I have used core dump debugging.  I have no experience with any "source-level debugger" except in, e.g., Smalltalk.  In that context I'll admit it was great.
> 
>...
> If you like Eiffel and for some reason stand Python, you'll love Ruby...

You're right.  I do love Ruby.  But again there's that terrible problem of insufficient or non-working libraries.

> 
>> At some point, when you feel ready, pick up a copy of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming.  Every programmer should read that at least once.
> 
> As in: "before they die". Probably a good way to scare someone for life?

I did recommend that they wait until D was making sense.  By that point Knuth should be readable.  (I don't recommend working all the exercises...though if you DID feel like it, well, you'd be a programmer in a thousand.  Or 10,000)
> 
>> Another book to read (not a recommended first book, of first language) 
That should have been "OR first language", not "of"
>> is Kernigan & Richie's C (The C Programming Language?).  I find C too dangerous a language for ordinary use, and consider in principle the best language I've encountered.  But it's too bleeding edge at the moment, and doesn't have a good collection of working libraries, so I can't recommend it to a beginner.
> 
> That should probably be "D" in your findings, but K&R is a good book.
Yeah.  A typo left out D there.  Maybe next year...but I doubt it.  A good collection of libraries isn't any short piece of work, so unless the compiler can somehow snarf up the C libraries  (and for this purpose SWIG doesn't suffice...they need to be available, not "available with enough extra work") getting sufficient libraries isn't a short piece of work.

> 
> --anders