> A question for this learned group on software engineering...
>
> If you were to recommend a programming language to a young engineer- 
> to-be
> (maybe software engineer or maybe hardware) to study before  
> college, what would
> it be given the following criteria? The selection shouldn't be  
> based on
> educational merits per se, but on usefulness to one's career,  
> conformance to
> current programming philosophies, availability (open, free, etc),  
> ease of
> picking it up (good dev environment), and it's ability for rapid  
> development
> (prefer something that will do console and windowed apps). The  
> programming
> environment and language should be free/open and can be run on  
> Linux AND
> Windows. Ability to create an exe as opposed to interpreted is  
> preferred, and
> stability ranks high too.
>
> Some of those criteria may not seem important in an educational  
> setting, but
> they are to a young self-educational setting... ;)
>
>

I recommend spending some time learning Forth and learning how the  
hard links to the soft.  Of course if the student never plans to  
understand hardware, you can skip my suggestion.
cc
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