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digitalmars.D.learn - Learning D

reply "Daemon" <daemon yahoo.com> writes:
Hi there. I am mesmerized by D and I would love to start using it 
to really learn programming. I've tried it a year ago but failed 


a lot of the 'mechanical stuff', like how the hell am I supposed 
to use something I need to build from source, linking to 

I've never learned.

So, after failing to use D for the first time, I decided that it 
would probably be best to start learning C++ and then, when I 
have solid understanding of things like these, transition to D. I 
have the advantage of a friend who lent me /C++ Primer, 5th 
Edition/ that also covers C++11.

My question is, do you recommend this approach? I am not only 
talking about learning the syntax - I consider that to be 
relatively easy. But I want to create meaningful programs and 

implement things and even though I tried my best to use the SOLID 
approach, I failed. I am hoping that if I learn C++, I can make 
use of some other books that discuss program design that I could 
learn.

Sorry for the longwinded post, but I am kind of desperate at this 
point.. it's really frustrating to suck at representing ideas in 
a programming language.

Thanks for any responses
Jun 06 2013
next sibling parent "bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Daemon:


 Thanks for any responses


Let's see. Your post is not longwinded. You don't need to learn 
C++ to learn D.
On the other hand C++ has more books and free documentation 
around. But I think learning C++ is harder than D, because D is 
meant to be cleaned up compared to C++.
Today if you know C++ you are able to use that knowledge in jobs, 
while D is quite less requested.

you can use it to learn almost anything in programming, even a 
bit of functional programming, dynamic programming, etc.

Representing ideas in a programming language is hard for most 
people, it's the human brain that shows its limits at managing 
that level of complexity. If you think you have problems in 
'representing ideas in a programming' then maybe D is not going 

smart way, to do practice, to have one or more mentors to copy 
from, lot of time, good books, and so on. To do all this D is not 

has books and courses, there is plenty of software and projects 
around to contribute to or work for, has better tooling, and so 
on, so it's easer to exercise with).

Welcome to D again,
bearophile
Jun 06 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent =?UTF-8?B?QWxpIMOHZWhyZWxp?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:
On 06/06/2013 01:50 PM, Daemon wrote:


 I am mesmerized by D and I would love to start using it to really learn
 programming.


I agree with bearophile. I think D is easier to learn than C++.


 I decided that it would probably be best to start learning C++ and then,
 when I have solid understanding of things like these, transition to D.


Every language has its own idioms, ways of thinking, peculiarities, etc. 
When you switch languages sometimes you have to unlearn those as well.


 it's really frustrating to suck at representing ideas in a programming
 language.


Programming is still a very difficult task. As you have discovered, even 
the programming language itself, the most essential tool, takes years to 
master. Then there are well-known gotchas that you must learn to protect 
yourself from; some of the basic concepts of programming are extremely 
difficult to grasp; etc.

Having said all of that, here is my plug:

   http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/

That is a book trying to teach programming in D. Since it was up a year 
ago, you must have already seen it. If you haven't, I would be happy to 
hear about criticisms, improvement recommendations, etc.

Ali
Jun 06 2013
prev sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Thu, Jun 06, 2013 at 10:50:05PM +0200, Daemon wrote:

 Hi there. I am mesmerized by D and I would love to start using it to
 really learn programming. I've tried it a year ago but failed


 the 'mechanical stuff', like how the hell am I supposed to use
 something I need to build from source, linking to libraries,

 learned.
 
 So, after failing to use D for the first time, I decided that it
 would probably be best to start learning C++ and then, when I have
 solid understanding of things like these, transition to D. I have
 the advantage of a friend who lent me /C++ Primer, 5th Edition/ that
 also covers C++11.


If you're going to learn D, I highly recommend following a book that
explains D concepts. Don't pick up bad C++ habits and apply them to D:
that will only produce poor D code.  For starters, I recommend this
excellent online book (free!) that teaches programming basics using D:

	http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html

Not all of the chapters have been translated from Turkish yet, but the
stuff that's already there should be enough to get you started.

And if at all possible, I highly recommend getting a copy of Andrei
Alexandrescu's "The D Programming Language" (TDPL). Another classic.



 My question is, do you recommend this approach? I am not only
 talking about learning the syntax - I consider that to be relatively
 easy. But I want to create meaningful programs and I've always

 even though I tried my best to use the SOLID approach, I failed. I
 am hoping that if I learn C++, I can make use of some other books
 that discuss program design that I could learn.


[...]

I don't recommend learning C++ first. Just start with D. The way to
improve your coding skills is just to write lots and lots of code. The
more you write, the better you'll get at it.

After you've gained enough experience, if you want to learn *real*
programming, and you're willing to learn hard stuff in order to get
there, I recommend reading Donald Knuth's "The Art of Computer
Programming".  It's hard stuff, but it will make you an excellent
programmer, not just a good one. (But don't do this until you've learned
the basics first, so read the previous two books first, and get lots of
experience writing lots and lots of code.)


T

-- 
Never trust an operating system you don't have source for! -- Martin Schulze
Jun 06 2013
parent reply "bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
H. S. Teoh:


 The way to improve your coding skills is just to write
 lots and lots of code. The more you write, the better
 you'll get at it.


Doing lot of exercise is not nearly enough. You also must do them 
"smartly". And it's far from obvious what that means. And most 
schools, movies, TV and most friends don't give you an idea of 
what that "smartly" means.

I believe that a lot of what tells apart the common people from 
the people that have mastered their field is that (future or 
present) masters have found good ways to train themselves. One 
example of such "smarts" is that you have to keep pushing 
yourself forward, working mostly on the parts that you find less 
easy to do.

There so many wrong ways to teach to ourselves, it's hard to do, 
and it's very easy to get struck in local maxima. And what's 
worse, often such local maxima are hard to tell from the true 
maxima, that is the mastering of a field :-)

Bye,
bearophile
Jun 06 2013
parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Fri, Jun 07, 2013 at 01:01:54AM +0200, bearophile wrote:

 H. S. Teoh:
 

The way to improve your coding skills is just to write
lots and lots of code. The more you write, the better
you'll get at it.


 
 Doing lot of exercise is not nearly enough. You also must do them
 "smartly". And it's far from obvious what that means. And most
 schools, movies, TV and most friends don't give you an idea of what
 that "smartly" means.


[...]

You're right. My statement is predicated upon being able to learn from
your mistakes and progress, but when it comes to coding, it's not always
obvious what's a mistake unless you have some outside input.

For example, I first started coding in the ancient Applesoft FP/BASIC,
and cut my teeth on writing spaghetti code (the few industrial examples
I've seen at the time didn't help either -- that was the way people
wrote code back in those days).

It wasn't until I picked up a book on -- of all things -- assembly
language programming on the PC, that I learned about modular programming
and code reuse -- because without a logical modular decomposition,
assembly code QUICKLY gets completely out of hand and unmaintainable.
Code reuse was also necessary to make writing non-trivial applications
in assembly language tolerable.

However, it was only when I started learning C in university that I
first really learned about functional abstraction -- even in my previous
modular code, there were tons of globals everywhere and function
interfaces were ad hoc and not well-planned. With C, I began to learn
how to encapsulate chunks of code in functions. Of course, university CS
courses also helped me with learning proper abstractions (y'know,
avoiding globals, goto's, etc.).

In my later years in university, C++ first made its mark on the
industry, and that was when I first learned OO programming. Around that
time I had cut my teeth on writing ray-tracers and B-trees, so I guess
you could say my education helped a lot, even if much of it was
impractical things like uncomputability theory -- certainly an
interesting subject, but it's a bit sad if a CS graduate knows more
about uncomputable problems than computable ones! (I have actually seen
people like this.) In grad school I wrote a compiler in an elective
course, and a decompiler for my thesis (haha, the irony). By then I had
learned several other languages, including Concurrent Clean, Perl, Java
(the earliest versions), and a bunch of others.

Then I went into the workforce, and that was when I first encountered a
"real" software system... and saw all of the infelicities that goes into
making a commercial product alongside the ingenius ideas. That really
drove me to reflect deeply about maintainability and proper software
design. Ultimately it would drive me to look for a better programming
language that would be both practical, encourage proper programming
style, and still retain close-to-metal performance.  Eventually this led
me to D. :)


T

-- 
Klein bottle for rent ... inquire within. -- Stephen Mulraney
Jun 06 2013
parent reply "Daemon" <daemon yahoo.com> writes:
Thanks for all the fantastic replies, now I'm really glad I asked.

Ali, I'm already reading your book and it's pretty good. I've 
also ordered The D Programming language, so that should be a big 
help. The only thing that remains is patience I guess. I won't 
give up on D so easily this time.

Thanks a lot, really
Jun 07 2013
parent "Gary Willoughby" <dev kalekold.net> writes:
On Friday, 7 June 2013 at 13:45:50 UTC, Daemon wrote:

 The only thing that remains is patience I guess.


That, buy Andrei's book and ask questions here. :)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Programming-Language-Andrei-Alexandrescu/dp/0321635361
Jun 07 2013