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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107f24,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid107f24,public X-Google-Thread: f4fd2,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gidf4fd2,public X-Google-Thread: 103d24,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid103d24,public X-Google-Thread: 1164ba,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid1164ba,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 10259a,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid10259a,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,ea8ea502d35ca2ce X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-05-14 19:02:06 PST Path: archiver1.sj.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!enews.sgi.com!fido.engr.sgi.com!rigden.engr.sgi.com!rpw3 From: rpw3@rigden.engr.sgi.com (Rob Warnock) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.basic,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.perl Subject: Re: Beginner's Language? Date: 15 May 2001 02:02:03 GMT Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA Message-ID: <9dq2mr$8bduv$1@fido.engr.sgi.com> References: <9cukad$nn68@news-dxb> <9ddhll$b8o@goaway.cc.monash.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: rigden.engr.sgi.com X-Trace: fido.engr.sgi.com 989892123 8763359 163.154.34.115 (15 May 2001 02:02:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@fido.engr.sgi.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 May 2001 02:02:03 GMT Xref: archiver1.sj.google.com comp.lang.ada:7508 comp.lang.lisp:10056 comp.lang.smalltalk:9673 comp.lang.functional:5643 comp.lang.scheme:3808 comp.lang.perl:2744 Date: 2001-05-15T02:02:03+00:00 List-Id: Iain McNaughton wrote: +--------------- | Oh, what the heck, here's my two cents: | Seems to me that the best language for a beginner is BASIC. I'm quite | serious about this. I don't mean Visual Basic, or any of the other | recent extensions or amendments to BASIC; I mean original BASIC, as | developed at Dartmouth in the 60s. +--------------- Not everyone will agree with you. In fact, some have been known to be quite vehement about it, such as Dijkstra's classic flame: It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have ad a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally multilated beyond hope of regeneration.[*] In that same paper, he says somewhat similar things (in varying degrees) about FORTRAN, PL/I, COBOL, APL, and (reading between the lines) Ada. And since this thread included a considerable amount of Lisp/Scheme-bashing because the syntax isn't "natural" (by some opinions), one more excerpt: Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. -Rob [*] EWD 498 "How do we tell truths that might hurt?", pp.129-131 in Edsger W. Dijkstra, "Selected Writing on Computing: A Personal Perspective" (Springer Verlag, 1982) ISBN 0-387-90652-5. Scanned version at ----- Rob Warnock, 31-2-510 rpw3@sgi.com SGI Network Engineering 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy. Phone: 650-933-1673 Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA