Re: FORTRAN bug(was Re: C++ vs. Ada -- Is Ada loosing?)

[agate!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!csc.ti.com!til de.csc.ti.com!mksol!mccall@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (fred j mccall 575-3539)]

In <1992Dec11.213147.24000@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman
) writes:

>In article <1992Dec11.132942.24054@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com
 (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>
>>>For 10 points on your grade: what is printed? Why?
>>>Try explaining it to a freshman.
>>
>>Nothing is printed.  You built an infinite loop.  This is hard to
>>understand?  You made a while loop with an empty body and a condition
>>that is never met because you never increment x.  Your freshmen don't
>>get this?

>Sure they get it. I just don't want to take my time or theirs on this
>kind of silliness. Which is why I keep saying that C should be
>everyone's second language and nobody's first.

I agree.  I feel the same way about Ada, by the way.  There's simply
too much there to be teaching it to people as a first language.

>>
>>>Any similar idiosyncracies in Ada? 
>>
>>Single character ones?  Probably not, but that just indicates that Ada
>>is incredibly more verbose than C.  One of the things I DISlike about
>>it, by the way.
>>
>You're certainly entitled to your opinion. I'm not down on C. I'd
>rather train my teenager on a nice, verbose, safe car and give him
>the keys to the Porsche after he's proven himself on the Chevy.
>Less chance he'll waste his time crashing and burning. And the 70% or
>more of the freshman teachers who are going to Ada or sticking with
>Pascal (only slightly less verbose than Ada) agree.

Pascal tends to be a somewhat more appropriate choice for a first
language.  It's a nice protected environment with a limited set of
features. 

>Please - no more language wars.

I concur -- which is why I took exception to the original
characterizations of 'the C community'.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.