From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public From: Sam Harris Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/01 Message-ID: <3200F638.167E@hso.link.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 171447480 references: <01bb73e3.1c6a0060$6bf467ce@dave.iceslimited.com> <1996Jul20.124025.122789@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <01bb7b06$311fabc0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <31FBC584.4188@ivic.qc.ca> <4toc18$4j0@ns3.iamerica.net> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: Hughes Training, Inc. - Houston Operations mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada x-mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (X11; I; IRIX 5.3 IP19) Date: 1996-08-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: AJ Musgrove wrote: > In the military, soldiers are taught how to disassemble guns. > Why? There are people who could do that for them. If one FULLY understands the > tools they are using, one can use them better. Period. In the field, there is no one else to strip and clean your weapon. In fact, while in garrison, a soldier is held ultimately responsible for his weapon from time of issuance until it is returned to the armoury and is expected to do all the cleaning and stripping personally. No one else does it because the soldier must know how to quickly disassemble and clear or even repair the weapon in a dark, wet hole in no man's land. In addition to those hard realities of military life, knowing those intimate details of the workings of the weapon does indeed enable the soldier to use it to better effect. Military specs on performance envelops are always conservative. A knowledgeble soldier with the weapon in the hand knows better how far the performance can be pushed. As to language order, I learned BASIC and Z80 assembler at about the same time (ages ago) and matured my techiques in both in parallel. If someone cannot deal with the level of detail and the span of attention required to effectively program assembly, then that individual may be in the wrong business. Best to find out early so the student can make an informed choice about their potential success in the field. When I was an Air ROTC cadet, I wanted to be a pilot. In that program, you got 7 hours of flight instruction, 1 hour for solo, 3 hours of additional instruction including more solos. The 12th hour was a flight test. The candidate was expected to perform at the level of 40 hours of flight instruction. The reasoning being, if the candidate did not have the talent to "pick it up" that quickly, then performance would never be acceptable at the Air Force level. As a personal note, after 7 hours, I was a competant pilot as long as everything went a-okay, but I was no where near ready for the flight test. Like Dirty Harry said, "A man's got to know his limitations." I believe teaching a higher-level language with constant feedback with the produced assembler output is a good combination worth serious consideration and trial. In my college days tutoring other comp-sci students, I noticed a disheartening trend of students competent in reasoning with their familiar language becoming totally lost in the minutia of assembly. They just count map their higher-level language constructs into the dozens of lines of equivalent assmbly code. Once I show them how those contructs worked in assembly, they now had another "brand name" collection to go with their tool set and of they went. -- Samuel T. Harris, Senior Engineer Hughes Training, Inc. - Houston Operations 2224 Bay Area Blvd. Houston, TX 77058-2099 "If you can make it, We can fake it!"