D vs Java as a first programming language

[Nick Sabalausky]

"dsimcha" <dsimcha at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:gbrvb5$cdt$1 at digitalmars.com...
> == Quote from Christopher Wright (dhasenan at gmail.com)'s article
>> Sean Kelly wrote:
>> > The typical approach to this tends to be "just put this stuff in the
>> > file and ignore it--I'll explain it later.  I never understood why this
>> > is considered a good teaching method :-)
>> Because it lets you create toys without understanding, and thus gets you
>> interested without you expending significant effort.
>
> Agreed, though I wouldn't necessarily phrase it in a way that smacks of
> intellectual laziness.  Personally, I've always felt that I learn much 
> more
> quickly and much more thoroughly when I get to try to do something 
> (preferably
> useful) with my new knowledge as I'm learning, even if my understanding is 
> fairly
> shaky, rather than being forced to learn all the 
> minutiae/background/theory before
> trying to use any of what I've learned.  For example, I would *never* read 
> a book
> about a new programming language cover to cover before trying to write 
> something
> in it.  I would probably skim the first chapter or two, try to do a 
> project in it,
> use the book as a reference, and then read the book cover to cover later 
> to learn
> some better ways of doing things after I'd gotten my hands dirty a little.
>
> I feel that once I've actually tried to use a new piece of knowledge, I 
> have a
> *much* better idea of what, specifically, I still don't get, and can ask 
> much more
> intelligent questions than if I'm forced to learn large amounts of stuff 
> passively
> from lectures/books before getting my hands dirty with any of it. 
> Furthermore,
> learning this way also makes it much easier for me to see how things fit 
> into the
> bigger picture.  Not sure if this is universal, or just a personal 
> preference.

I'm not sure if that's universal either, but I suspect that it is (excapt 
maybe for some rare fringe cases). At the very least, I can say that my mind 
works that way too.