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From: Craig Franck <clfranck@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn
 C or Pascal?]
Date: 1996/08/11
Message-ID: <4ujcgg$7ph@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>#1/1
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references: <4uaqqg$203@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
 <01bb84b4$75304ce0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>
 <4ubnhr$714@news1.mnsinc.com>
 <01bb8536$892ee260$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>
 <4ud8oo$61t@solutions.solon.com> <320bf84e.9269979@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
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Date: 1996-08-11T00:00:00+00:00
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miker3@ix.netcom.com (Mike Rubenstein) wrote:
>seebs@solutions.solon.com (Peter Seebach) wrote:
>
>> In article <01bb8536$892ee260$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>,
>> Tim Behrendsen <tim@airshields.com> wrote:
>> >My point is someone who has "vaguely" learned five algorithms has
>> >simply memorized them, and learned nothing about the general
>> >principles of how algorithms are created.
>> 
>> Which is exactly what will happen if they code them in assembly; they
>> can't possibly be learning how algorithms are created if they start with
>> implementing them in a low level language.  Algorithms are generally written
>> in natural languages, and written on napkins.
>
>Are you suggesting that the guy who invented the GCD algorithm you
>used didn't know assembly language? :-)

Euclid was a mathmetician, not a programmer :-)

I think why you should write algorithms in a natural language or even
psudo-code (whether on a napkin or not) is that an algorithm is not 
tied to any language. You implement the algorithm in a language, but
the algorithm itself has nothing to do with any one language. Our friend 
Euclid would probably think it existed in the "realm of idea's" A lot
of books use sort of a pidgeon pascal to discribe algorithms. Ideally
you could descibe it in math, but of course the concept of an iterative
construct is very week in mathmatics. To understand the creation of
algorithms you need to learn structured reasoning, critical thinking
skills, and get alot of simple algoithms under your belt before tackling
big ones. Figuring out how to print centered text on a monitor has
nothing to do with assembly language even though you can code as such.

-- 

Craig
-----
clfranck@worldnet.att.net
Manchester, NH
There are no electrons...