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=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC 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: Lawrence Kirby Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/15 Message-ID: <840116145snz@genesis.demon.co.uk>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 174384020 x-nntp-posting-host: genesis.demon.co.uk references: x-mail2news-path: genesis.demon.co.uk organization: none reply-to: fred@genesis.demon.co.uk newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-08-15T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article austern@isolde.mti.sgi.com "Matt Austern" writes: >smosha@most.fw.hac.com (Stephen M O'Shaughnessy) 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. >> >> Learn sorting algorithms in assembly? Are you serious!? > >Why not? Volume 3 of Knuth is all about sorting algorithms, and >every program in it is written in MIX assembly language. Knuth doesn't use MIX to describe the algorithms (it is pretty much useless for that purpose). Rather after describing the algorithms in text and action sequences he uses MIX to show an example implementation which he then uses for quantitative timing analysis. -- ----------------------------------------- Lawrence Kirby | fred@genesis.demon.co.uk Wilts, England | 70734.126@compuserve.com -----------------------------------------