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=-0.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,a9b0810d3106d9b8 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!d19g2000prh.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Elias_Salom=E3o_Helou_Neto?= Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Fun with C Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 11:37:00 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <84b83223-e191-4912-8f73-318deb4dd783@d19g2000prh.googlegroups.com> References: <27cf3992-4132-4483-9110-adc7a089cd4a@e8g2000vbz.googlegroups.com> <3ccf18a2-ba10-42bc-aeab-9368749961fb@a11g2000pro.googlegroups.com> <4c2b6a58-e3b6-47da-95e0-64853be5c1f9@v11g2000prb.googlegroups.com> <86748003-860f-4729-ae26-55be1e58ac2b@d27g2000vbz.googlegroups.com> <4b5748dc-60fa-4cec-a317-054626e9a1ca@d19g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <1908th3tyz101.1f6c5w8t9mggy.dlg@40tude.net> <2118e788-7b3e-4d25-8d0f-5e60498e3a3b@cu4g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> <1hnl95prvrt6i$.1s675gncbjxsu$.dlg@40tude.net> <5d44db50-ceff-4f4d-8bc7-714f31fbca06@hd10g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> <1uthrsrabx8di$.8i74uk28axo0.dlg@40tude.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 186.223.216.44 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1303583821 9606 127.0.0.1 (23 Apr 2011 18:37:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 18:37:01 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: d19g2000prh.googlegroups.com; posting-host=186.223.216.44; posting-account=8auP9QoAAACkSx2qxJhP83KA6-tg78E8 User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8 SUSE/7.0.528.0 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/7.0.528.0 Safari/534.8,gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:19020 Date: 2011-04-23T11:37:00-07:00 List-Id: On Apr 23, 4:23=A0am, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" wrote: > On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:08:33 -0700 (PDT), Elias Salom=E3o Helou Neto wrot= e: > > > On Apr 22, 6:21=A0am, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" > > wrote: > > >> Nevertheless, future professional programmers should never be exposed = to C > >> as the first language. It is like teaching physics in the school. Pupi= ls > >> first learn the physics of XIX century. When they made 3/4, they are t= old: > >> guys, that was wrong! Here is how it goes! Programmers must learn conc= epts > >> and techniques which C cannot illustrate. What C can illustrate is how= not > >> to program. > > > When it comes to physics, the main reason to teach classical > > mechanical is that it is actually a good approximation to modern > > theories and the math is far more simple. Nobody will say "guys, that > > was wrong!" because that is not wrong, it just must be used within its > > valid limits. > > I heard that wrong argument so many times. Certainly you've not heard it from good physicists, but from rather stupid ones. Let me state it clearly: Classical Mechanics isn't wrong at all. It is the best and most useful approximation for a wide range of phenomena. Why would someone use Quantum Mechanics or Relativity to compute velocities when designing an automatic train control system? > > Rockets reached the moon based on computations that used > > classical Newtonian mechanics. > > So? Linux was written in C, does it justify C? I was justifying Classical Mechanics. But Linux' success kind of justifies C as a system language, but let us not argue on that. > [I hope your students do not build rockets (:-))] I hope they eventually will. I just hope they do not use C. > > It is quite different with programming languages, as C is actually > > harder than Pascal, which is a great tool for teaching programming. > > In which sense is C harder? I bet students find it simple. It is hard to > teach concepts of software design on example of C? Bauhaus explained it very well. And why on earth would I be teaching software design on an introductory course on programming? It is much more about algorithm, data structures and the language itself. > But Newtonian mechanics > is perfect for teaching cosmology, quantum effects, optics, fields etc? Do you want to teach this stuff to high school students? I don't get your idea here. Elias