[erlang-questions] "Erlang as a First Language" -- crazy? or just stupid?

[egarrulo]

2009/12/24 Robert Raschke <rtrlists@REDACTED>

>
> I understand that tools like IDEs are "nice to have", but they are not
> programming.
>
> About 80-90% of programming is thinking time. If it is not, then you are
> experimenting, not designing and writing a system!
>

I would agree if we were talking about skilled programmers. When you're
learning a new language, the amount of twiddling vs designing is much more.
Your understanding of how your program work is limited, and no matter how
long you stare at your misbehaving code, you will have a difficult time
understanding what and where it's breaking. Maybe I have this opinion
because my first language has been C, and learning it without a source level
debugger would have been much less efficient. What I've observed is that
once people become proficient at a skill, they usually forget how things can
be difficult for a newcomer.

OTOH, a huge IDE would be overkill, and would hamper learning. That's why
I've not recommended using Eclipse.