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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public From: fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson) Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/05 Message-ID: <4u5a11$siv@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 172276841 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> <01bb7da2$6c505ac0$96ee6fcf@timhome2> <01bb8027$de0e9c80$96ee6fcf@timhome2> organization: Comp Sci, University of Melbourne newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-08-05T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: "Tim Behrendsen" writes: >Let's try a thought experiment. We take two students; Jane is taught >assembly from day 1 for two years. John is taught C for two years. >Both are exposed to identical curriculums of algorithmic analysis, >data structures, etc. That's not a realistic thought experiment. Teaching abstraction, data structures, etc. is easier in a higher level language, and so it is unlikely that Jane will have managed to complete the same curriculum that John can, given the handicap of using a low-level language. I've tutored classes using C and Miranda, amoung other languages. Much of the time tutoring C was spent explaining how to avoid common traps and pitfalls in C that simply don't occur in Miranda. In Miranda, the code for a simple quicksort algorithm fits in about two or three lines. This makes it much easier for students to grasp the essential ideas of such algorithms. I haven't tutored any classes using assembler, but I imagine that students would get even more distracted by low-level issues (which are not relevant to learning the algorithms, abstraction techniques, etc. that the tutorial is trying to teach) than they do in C. >Jane [...] will >already know the concepts; it's just a matter of learning the syntax. It's generally much easier to learn a concept in the first place if you have some syntax to hang it on. Assembler doesn't help much in that respect. -- Fergus Henderson | "I have always known that the pursuit WWW: | of excellence is a lethal habit" PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3 | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.