Re: Eiffel anyone? - Who uses it?

[uzs90z@uni-bonn.de (Michael Schuerig)]

ivory@tower.com <ivory@tower.com> wrote:

> My friend's son is looking at colleges, and was startled to see
> that RIT appears to have a heavy focus on the language Eiffel for
> the first 2-3 years.  He's using this as a black mark against the
> school.  The thinking is that he'd rather be learning a 'real'
> language that has real-life value on the job market.

When I was an undergraduate in computer science I had to learn Scheme (a
Lisp dialect) and enjoyed it very much. In later years they tought ML, a
pure functional language. Software Engineering courses were held in
Modula-2 and Eiffel.

Actually I've forgotten almost everything about Scheme and Eiffel that I
ever learned. I don't mind. Should I ever again need one of these
language I'll put a suitable book next to my keyboard and go ahead. What
I learned was something much more profound than a specific language:
concepts. I got an idea of how to approach programming problems -- the
rest is practice.

Right now I'm much more familiar with C++ and somewhat familiar with
Java and Perl. But nevertheless, I think it was a good thing to start
out with Scheme (or any other "unusual" language). It's a rare student
today who goes to college/university to study computer science without
any programming experience. But that experience might get into your way!
Here I am and I already know how to program -- what the heck are they
going to teach me? That's a serious misconception. Computer science
education is not about getting things done. It's about learning _how_ to
get things done.

Another intersting aspect of "unusual" programming languages is that
they level the playing field. It's new to each of the students, there's
not one know-all. Teamwork gets easier if you're just as "stupid" as
your neighbor.

Michael

--
Michael Schuerig                     I am the sum total of the
mailto:uzs90z@uni-bonn.de            parts I control directly.
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs90z/             -Daniel C. Dennett