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: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: huang@mnsinc.com (Szu-Wen Huang) Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/06 Message-ID: <4u7g62$eb0@news1.mnsinc.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 172464354 distribution: inet references: <01bb7fcc$c5a98de0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <4u5rqe$9gv@ns.broadvision.com> followup-to: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada organization: Monumental Network Systems newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-08-06T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: [i feel the need, but i don't know which groups to trim.] Patrick Horgan (patrick@broadvision.com) wrote: : In article <01bb7fcc$c5a98de0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>, "Tim Behrendsen" writes: : > Except, IMO assembly should be used *exclusively* for the first two : > years of a CS degree. The first two years is usually all algorithmic : > analysis, anyway. There's nothing you can't learn about algorithms : > that you can't learn and learn it better doing it in assembly. : Good point Tim! It's sure a lot easier counting cycles in assembler. : Unfortunately, a lot of schools aren't teaching algorithmic analysis : anymore. Counting cycles is not analysis of algorithms. Knowing that a specific implementation runs in 145 cycles on a 68HC11 buys you nothing if you happen to develop for an 80486. We study (generally) the time and space complexities of algorithms using platform-independent notations such as O() in their best, average, and worst cases (and whatever case turns out interesting). As for assembly, it has about the merit of BASIC when teaching programming. It's usually impossible to abstract the OS, and unnecessarily forces novice programmers to learn quite a bit about a specific platform before being able to do anything useful. Assembly enforces no structure, so just like BASIC it is easy to form students that write spaghetti code.