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=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,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: heller@utdallas.edu (Steve Heller) Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/23 Message-ID: <4vj455$nov@news.utdallas.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 175971211 references: <4uodcb$8hr@rational.rational.com> <4vgftj$3nh@ns.broadvision.com> organization: The University of Texas at Dallas newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-08-23T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: patrick@broadvision.com (Patrick Horgan) wrote: >When I find an elegant solution much of the code falls out. The solution gets >simpler. It seems to come from a better understanding of the problem. An >elegant solution seems to arise out of the problem domain with a life of it's >own demanding to be implemented. Its a best-fit solution. >When I find one (and I think years of thinking really hard and learning hard >lead to finding more of them), it almost always ends up being the best of >all worlds. >It's efficient. >It's easy to use. >It's clear and easy to maintain. >I don't think you get here without a lot of experience in good code and bad code, >good ideas and bad ideas, and I know that this will offend some, but really, >really, low level code like assembler code is one of the ingredients that >go into your palette to bring you to a place where you can do this. >Add in some intuition and some other right brain stuff, and you start getting >developers that are head and shoulders above the rest of the folks. You >start getting people that come up with the elegant solutions. >I've seen some of them trying to communicate in this (too) long discussion and >being frustrated because people didn't understand what they were saying. >It seemed so obvious to them, but they were talking in some cases to people >without the background to understand their arguments. It's often very difficult for someone who knows a subject very well to communicate their insights to those who are relatively inexperienced. That's probably why good technical writers can make a living (in some cases, a very good living) writing books that explain such things clearly and simply. Steve Heller, author and software engineer http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/steve_heller