That was me, and you’re absolutely right, Brad. This is one of the hazards of talking on your feet. 🙂 I still think it’s sound advice for pros. “Real programmers code in C” is obviously a canard, but knowledge of machine organization (one of the things conveyed by C) is not. I use that knowledge all the time when coding in Ruby or Java. But this is highly misleading, and, as you say, discouraging advice if the subject is “how to get into programming.”

I should also add, following a post from Matt Kirschenbaum on my blog, that one of the best ways to get into programming is to look at things like MUDs, Second Life, Processing, and other domain specific language environments. These environments are loads of fun and they also get you right into the concepts that underlie programming in any context.

I think this is a little bit like telling a culinary arts student that they should plan to get a masters in chemistry.

There was a time, not too long ago, when a programmer who didn’t know about low-level concepts was just plain dangerous. Crashing a machine with a few lines of reckless code was a piece of cake.

These days, though, that’s no longer the case. The vast majority of programming — and especially the sort of programming being done by non-engineers — is of the web-services variety, and for that sort of programming you simply don’t need to know a whole lot about how computer hardware actually runs. There is an exception, of course, for database optimization on high traffic sites, which requires a fair amount of systems knowledge, but most projects that are large enough to require that will have a “real” engineer on staff anyway.

The reason I dispute this minor point is because, if one of the goals of this episode was to lower the barriers to entry for non-programmers who want to start in programming, I think it’s misleading and discouraging to continue to propagate the nostalgic attitude that web developers aren’t “real” programmers until they’ve learned to code in C.

That’s all. Great episode, guys!

http://norvig.com/21-days.html

This essay is very well known among hackers, who often forward it to people who ask, “How did I get into programming?” You’ll notice that it’s been translated into nineteen languages. Some very wise (and for the most part, easy to follow) advice for anyone starting out.