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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2024 11:10:53 +0200
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On 21/08/2024 09:36, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Aug 2024 09:26:41 +0200
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> boringly babbled:
>> So I don't question that it is interesting, informative, or a pleasure
>> to read.  I question that it is /necessary/.  You simply cannot argue
>> that people who want to program for Linux /must/ read that book.  There
>> is no justification for that claim.  There is no justification for
>> claiming that people wanting to program for Linux need to read any books
>> on the topic at all, nor for claims that people need to "know POSIX" to
>> be able to write code for Linux and/or in C.
> 
> Only knowing core C will severely limit what you can do on any OS. If
> you're happy just coding up file processors or some self contained
> mathematical algo and simply writing to stdout or a file then fine, but to do
> anything more sophisticated you'll need to know the OS API whether its posix
> + X on *nix or Win32 on Windows.

No, you do not.

Why is this so difficult for some people to understand?  You need to 
know about the parts relevant to the things you are doing.  Modern OS's 
are /huge/.  It is meaningless to talk about "knowing the OS API", 
because before you have learned 10% of it, major new versions will be 
available and at least part of your knowledge may be outdated.  By the 
time you have learned /all/ of it, several versions have passed and 
you've been fired from your job for pissing around for years learning 
things that have no relevance to your task, and you've probably 
forgotten at least half of it.  And then you can start learning the 
third-party libraries and APIs that are not part of the OS but useful 
for the task.

If you are writing network software for Linux, how is it relevant to 
learn about the sound API, or the more advanced filesystem API's ?  If 
you are writing a gui program with QT, why should you be interested in X 
APIs or POSIX threading and file handling - you'll be using the QT 
libraries and APIs for graphics, threading and file handling.

I have not suggested, or even hinted, that all you need is "core C" - 
what you need is the knowledge that is relevant to the task at hand, 
regardless of the OS, language, or whatever.

> 
>> There are a thousand and one ways to learn about the workings of Linux -
>> and that's counting "reading books" as one way, regardless of /which/
> 
> Linear learning is usually better than snippets from google. If you want
> to learn a shakespear play you read the book, you don't google little bits
> of it at a time.
> 

When did I suggest that snippets from google was "the" way to learn?

I'd agree that reading a book or two is likely to be better than reading 
nothing but "snippets from google".  You now have another 999 strawmen 
to go through.