Mail Archives: geda-help/2012/01/21/03:13:32
On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 08:15:02PM -0500, Darryl Gibson wrote:
>
> My question to this group is, what programming language would be most
> beneficial for me to learn, to help with gEDA?
>
C, certainly. It is a very small language (though we use some
libraries, particularly GLib, which are very big), and generally
follows the principle of least surprise -- though it does so by
forcing the programmer to specify everything!
> I asked a similar question on #ubuntu, and the answers favored Python,
> but I know that won't be of much use here, so...
>
> And I suppose I should learn a scripting language too? I would like to
> learn a scripting language that complements a programming language, if
> such a pair exists?
>
There are murmurs about Python every so often, but at the moment
we don't use it. As DJ mentioned, a lot of code is done in guile,
a variant of scheme.
However, I have made some fairly large contributions to pcb, without
ever learning or working with guile. So IMHO, it's not necessary when
starting out.
>
> I'm comfortable compiling from source, but I'm not familiar with Git.
>
> I think I should learn Git, so I can stay current with developments?
>
Well, certainly learn the basics (the 'clone', 'pull', 'branch', 'commit'
and 'diff' commands). But there is no need to become an expert. This
project doesn't use any of the crazy features of git you see, for example,
maintaining the Linux kernel heirarchy.
A good introduction is here: http://progit.org/book/
--
Andrew Poelstra
Email: asp11 at sfu.ca OR apoelstra at wpsoftware.net
Web: http://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew
"I don't understand. Are you saying dualism is always good, or always bad?"
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