C or LabVIEW: CompactRIO

[EricVanWyk]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

I almost totally agree. But I think that a computer architecture course and an algorithms course are soooo much better than learning assembly.

Agreed. I used ASM as an example for this audience. CompArch&Algs is much more relevant.

Note: I am not a programmer by trade, I am a SparkE. However, I really like hardware, so I've spent a little time there.

I learned a little x86 assembly, and a little PIC assembly. Relatively low return on investment, though it helped me understand C much better.

In CompArch/VLSI, we designed our own processor. Started with architecture, decided on components and interconnects, went to gates, laid out on silicon, and we even wrote our own assembly languages. I think one team even made an assembler in python. I probably won't design too many more processors, but it sure did help me better understand what is going on under the hood.

I got a lot out my Foundations of CS class. We learned a new programming language every other week, spanning most schools of thought. Scheme (LISP) taught me a surprising amount about algorithms, and prolog just proved that specific languages solve specific tasks orders and orders of magnitude better than any others can.

So... I hit a few lower levels, scraped my knees a bit and moved to the higher level languages. Now I write any code I need in English (in the form of a spec document) or python (which is essentially a dialect of English).