I started yet another C tutorial. It's the one hosted on wikibooks. It's fine, but I'm not really digging it. I had started another one a month or three back. It was a cool one that teaches you C while walking you through creating a lisp. I admire it's dual agenda, and it executes well on both fronts. I lost interest in it though, and I know exactly why: I had started copying and pasting code examples. This is a big no-no when you are trying to learn programing from web materials. I know it, and I think most other people know. Typing code out by hand is doing it The Hard Way as codified by the Zed Shaw method, and from experience I believe it makes a huge difference in understanding and retention.

=> https://learncodethehardway.org/c/ Learn C The Hard Way

Aside: One of my favorite articles recently is "How To Read A Code" by Jonas Lunberg. It provides a model for gaining insight and understanding into a new codebase based mostly on the perennial "How To Read A Book", but also mixing in a little bit of active recall which they get from--you guessed it (unless you didn't!)--Learn C The Hard Way. For example, they recommend studying the file and directory structure of a new project, trying to guess / comprehend the purpose and meaning of each directory and file, and then--here's the active recall part--open up a new terminal and create a new directory, and try to recreate from memory and by hand the basic directory structure and the main files. The files become stubs with self-referential, narrative comments about their purpose and role in the larger picture.

An interesting method. I've never tried it. It sounds labor intensive and mentally exhausting. But it sounds interesting.

=> https://www.iamjonas.me/2020/08/how-to-read-code.html How To Read A Code

=> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49422528-how-to-read-a-book How To Read A Book

Back to what I was saying.

I started yet another C tutorial.

I had a major inspiration and a minor inspiration for pointing my toes into these particular waters.

The minor inspiration is a flurry and a slurry of articles lately about Rust vs. Go, and now vs. Zig as the low level systems language of choice, and which one is "better" and which one shall inherit the throne of C as the lingua franca of systems programming. I've dabbled and flirted with Go and Rust. They seem cool. But I have this desire to go back and study the roots of it all, the origin and the source. Kind of like wanting to study Latin before learning Spanish? Not quite. More like wanting to go back and listen to the velvet underground before getting seriously into Bowie. Or listening to Leadbelly before getting into the White Stripes?

=> https://archive.is/w4qMm Is Zig the Long Awaited C Replacement? (Archived from medium.com)

The major inspiration has been all of the rad shit that Hundred Rabbits has put out, all of it written on a sailboat in C99.

> Rekka Bellum & Devine Lu Linvega are creating free & open-source software while sailing around the world.

=> https://100r.co/site/home.html

=> https://hundredrabbits.itch.io/

Divine of Rekka & Devine is very active on mastodon and posts lots of screenshots of her code projects and other stuff too.

=> https://merveilles.town/@neauoire

Their whole aesthetic and mission and purpose and the stuff they're into just really gels with me, from music to visual art to creating literature to living off the grid to sailing around the world to growing your own food (on a boat) to not owning a refrigerator, and everything else. So I'm sitting here openly admitting to having a huge crush and succombing to a cult of personality in which I whole heartedly admit that if they think C is cool, then maybe I like it too.