[rescue] Small servers (was Re: WTT: 1.5G of PC2700 for 1G of PC100)

[Joshua Boyd]

On Mon, May 05, 2008 at 07:49:13PM +0100, Mark wrote:

> I'm a newcomer to coding (I writing PHP which is about as far detached  
> from a real computer as you could want to be) and self taught but even  
> I find knowing the underlying programming principles don't vary. Still  
> even at high levels the core understanding of variables, functions,  
> loops, arrays, test cases and the like all form an essential part. In  
> effect most languages are formed around the same rules, but the higher  
> you go the more abstract they are and the more wordy they become.

I personally would rather use a language that is a good bit further from
the real computer than PHP is.  

But I still want to know how that language maps to the bare hardware.
 
> Although the majority of programming exercises were high level  
> language, usually in C or Java, they did teach a great deal about the  
> basic workings of the machine itself and the principles of every layer  
> of operations. The idea is Java is quick to learn and easy to grasp,  
> an objet oriented (which like it or not is becoming very important).  

You say it is important, but all the cool kids are moving on to things
like function programming, flow programming, logic programming, or
aspect oriented programming.  ;)

The smart student would prefer a nice versitile language that offers all
of the above, plus OO and procedural, while also making it easy to write
new language extensions and your own compilers.