From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.0 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_20 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 14 Dec 92 17:04:21 GMT From: 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) Subject: Re: FORTRAN bug(was Re: C++ vs. Ada -- Is Ada loosing?) Message-ID: <1992Dec14.170421.18709@mksol.dseg.ti.com> List-Id: 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.