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=-0.5 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_05 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 9 Sep 93 23:18:21 GMT From: news!agphx.agcs.com!not-for-mail@uunet.uu.net (Tim Barrios) Subject: Re: Pascal or C as a first lang Message-ID: <26odjt$hbj@orbit.agcs.com> List-Id: In article <9309081805.AA27680@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> JD3GTRCW.TRANSCOM@transcom.saf b.af.mil (CONROY WILLIAM F) writes: > >In article <1993Sep08.003727.36807@source.asset.com> >tannend@source.asset.com (David Tannen) writes: > > Since this thread won't go away, I thought I would throw > out some information from a recent Dr. Dobbs Journal (DDJ#203). > [ good article text removed ] > >I hate to offend the masters, but I have to wonder what world they are >living in. Ada? Who uses Ada? The question of which language is better >for programming in is not really as important as which language is >more commonly used. No college grad is going to get a job programming >in Ada (or at least very few are). But C is everywhere. Employers hiring people based on language experience alone (or any other N-letter words on a resume) aren't worth working for. It comes down to, are they hiring programmers or software engineers. If they want people who engineer software, all they should care about is that they can abstract ideas into a logical order that can be implemented in some programming language. As most people know, once you've used a few languages, learning a new one isn't a real big deal; learning a new development paradigm is a lot harder (and more important). The first language(s) people learn do tend to influence their future so I guess it would be important to learn one that is better at abstracting ideas (Pascal, Ada, C++, etc.). Pascal is excellent at teaching fundamentals of types which later can be expanded upon to learn OO-stuff. > Furthermore, >who has access to an Ada compiler? You can get free C compilers (or >damn cheap ones) for any machine. So which is going to be more useful >to a college student? Which is going to be more useful to someone >looking for a job? Obviously C! You get what you pay for? (-: I guess teaching C is like teaching assembly language. It lets the students see how bad things could be if we didn't have higher level languages. -- Tim Barrios, AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, AZ Internet: barriost@agcs.com UUCP: ...!{ihlps.att.com | att | ncar!noao!enuucp}!gtephx!barriost voice: (602) 582-7101