Universities in the US

Universities in the US

[Faisal Halim]

Assalaamu 'alaikum,

Thank you all for your replies to my question about which programming 
language is best suited for beginners. You people have convinced me that 
LISP and ADA rule.

One thing though, when I searched for U.S. universities in New York 
offering Computer Science courses, I actually came across a lot of Unis 
(universities) which start off with C++, or worse yet, Visual C++!

I will have to enter the U.S. as a foreign student, and as my uncle lives 
in New York, that is where I will have to study.

So I would like to know which Unis in New York teach CS in a way that is 
more beneficial for the students, teach languages in the context of the job 
required, and at the same time are affordable.

Thank you all for your kind feedback and co-operation.

Faisal Halim
15th May, 2001

Re: Universities in the US

[Barry Margolin]

In article <9drfcr$du11@news-dxb>,
Faisal Halim  <faisal_halim@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Assalaamu 'alaikum,
>
>Thank you all for your replies to my question about which programming 
>language is best suited for beginners. You people have convinced me that 
>LISP and ADA rule.
>
>One thing though, when I searched for U.S. universities in New York 
>offering Computer Science courses, I actually came across a lot of Unis 
>(universities) which start off with C++, or worse yet, Visual C++!
>
>I will have to enter the U.S. as a foreign student, and as my uncle lives 
>in New York, that is where I will have to study.
>
>So I would like to know which Unis in New York teach CS in a way that is 
>more beneficial for the students, teach languages in the context of the job 
>required, and at the same time are affordable.

Which do you want, languages that are easiest for beginners, or languages
that are best for finding jobs?  If you want the most choice of jobs, C/C++
and Java are probably what most employers are looking for.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net
Genuity, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.

Re: Universities in the US

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9drfcr$du11@news-dxb>, Faisal Halim says...
>So I would like to know which Unis in New York teach CS in a way that is 
>more beneficial for the students, teach languages in the context of the job 
>required, and at the same time are affordable.


Well, two of the principles behind the GNU Ada compiler are professors at NYU. I
don't know what they teach their CS1 students, but I suspect there are courses
there that use Ada.

Despite all the heat here about the "best" language, the really important thing
is that you get exposed to *multiple* languages during your time as a student.
Languages come and go. You need to learn how to *learn* a new language. A good
CS program will do that for you, so the most important thing for a prospective
student is to just find a good CS program.

There is *much* more to being a good software engineer than just knowing the
proper programming language(s). A good CS program should give you the
oppertunity to learn that other stuff as well.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Universities in the US

[Wade Humeniuk]

"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:W8cM6.2413$6j3.206605@www.newsranger.com...
> Despite all the heat here about the "best" language, the really important
thing
> is that you get exposed to *multiple* languages during your time as a
student.
> Languages come and go.

Lisp has just come, it has not gone yet.  Name a language that has gone.

Wade

Re: Universities in the US

[Kevin Rigotti]

Wade Humeniuk wrote in message <9drk4t$hjk$1@news3.cadvision.com>...
>
>Lisp has just come, it has not gone yet.  Name a language that has gone.
We've got code here written in Algol68R. We're still using the application
but even we don't have a compiler (and the R variant originated in Malvern).

I learnt functional programming in Hope, but have never seen it in a job
advert. Similarly, I learned how to do distributed programming in Conic and
haven't seen it since. They're never truly gone I suppose because the ideas
get recycled but branches do drop off the evolutionary tree sometimes.


Kevin
--
ATC Systems Group, DERA, St Andrews Road, Malvern, Worcestershire Phone +44
(0)1684 89 69 11, fax +44(0)1684 89 41 09
DERA disclaimers and restrictions apply, details on request

Re: Universities in the US

[Marin David Condic]

Or more accurately, some languages hang on like the California Condor - only
a dozen or so in existence with a small team of admirers struggling
valiantly to keep them alive. :-)

Seriously, its hard to see any languages *totally* disappear from any use at
all. However, usage can drop so low that it falls below the radar horizon.
(No jobs, not much teaching/learning of it, only a handful of projects in
obscure corners of the universe using it.) Languages can fall into niche
markets where there are some jobs, some academic usage and some active
interest in starting new projects in it. Ada kind of falls in that
category - not invisible, just not the hottest language in use.

Now that I am being forced (once again!) to program in C, I really realize
how much I miss Ada. As much complaining as I've done about Ada's
representation clauses - I now want to take it all back! I've got very
nearly *nothing* in C to help me with data representation. The level of pain
is so high in comparison to even *weak* support for representation in Ada,
that I absolutely cannot fathom why embedded programmers love C so much and
ignore Ada?

Perceptually speaking, I think Ada is experiencing some resurgence of
interest in the programming community. Especially with student programmers.
Perhaps there is becoming a realization that C/C++/Java/etc. just don't
offer as many nice features as Ada does for serious, industrial-strength,
larger-scale development. Hopefully, the trend will continue.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Kevin Rigotti" <rigotti@atc.dera.gov.uk> wrote in message
news:9drq8e$4ci$1@trog.dera.gov.uk...
> I learnt functional programming in Hope, but have never seen it in a job
> advert. Similarly, I learned how to do distributed programming in Conic
and
> haven't seen it since. They're never truly gone I suppose because the
ideas
> get recycled but branches do drop off the evolutionary tree sometimes.

Re: Universities in the US

[James Hague]

Marin David Condic wrote:
>
> Perceptually speaking, I think Ada is experiencing some resurgence of
> interest in the programming community. Especially with student
programmers.
> Perhaps there is becoming a realization that C/C++/Java/etc. just don't
> offer as many nice features as Ada does for serious, industrial-strength,
> larger-scale development. Hopefully, the trend will continue.

Way back when, Ada had a bad reputation for being a bloated language and
requiring bloated and unreliable compilers.  What's amusing now is that Ada
is a simpler language than what has become the norm (i.e. C++)!  And writing
a C++ compiler is more daunting thant writing an Ada compiler.

James




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Re: Universities in the US

[Marin David Condic]

That should be pretty easy to understand. The syntax & semantics of Ada83
were not as ill-conceived with respect to clarity (well defined behavior)
and expandability, so Ada95 didn't really require major gyrations to
produce. Everything was more a matter of a variation on a theme rather than
a bag hung on the side into which you throw new parts.

The syntax & semantics of C were maybe O.K. for the limited use originally
expected, but in terms of clearly defined semantics and readily expanded
semantics, C just didn't cut it. So when you try to expand it to C++, you've
got incredibly complex rules of behavior with numerous special cases,
exceptions and "implementation defined's". Just because of the screwy
semantics of function operators and everything in C wanting to be a
function, you get some of the most convoluted and strange rules of behavior
for passing parameters within C++.

When thinking about C++, I am reminded of the Harley Davidson Design
Principle: "If it breaks, make it bigger. If it sticks out, chrome it." :-)
(Now I'm in trouble with the HOG's as well at the C++-ites! :-)

Ada was designed to be large (Full Figured?) C++ organically grew to be
large. Hence its easy to see why C++ implementations are far harder to do.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"James Hague" <jamesh_fake@volition-inc.com> wrote in message
news:3b0178bd$1_2@newsfeeds...
> Way back when, Ada had a bad reputation for being a bloated language and
> requiring bloated and unreliable compilers.  What's amusing now is that
Ada
> is a simpler language than what has become the norm (i.e. C++)!  And
writing
> a C++ compiler is more daunting thant writing an Ada compiler.

Re: Universities in the US

[Lieven Marchand]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 878 bytes --]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes:

> Perceptually speaking, I think Ada is experiencing some resurgence of
> interest in the programming community. Especially with student programmers.
> Perhaps there is becoming a realization that C/C++/Java/etc. just don't
> offer as many nice features as Ada does for serious, industrial-strength,
> larger-scale development. Hopefully, the trend will continue.

It might. When I first encountered Ada in college, I hated it, partly
because of a very bad compiler (a slow horror that tried to correct
errors by inserting random tokens under VM/CMS). Now that I've had
some experience with maintaining large programs hacked on by many
people over the years, I start to appreciate a lot of the Ada
philosophy.

-- 
Lieven Marchand <mal@wyrd.be>
Gla�r ok reifr skyli gumna hverr, unz sinn b��r bana.

Re: Universities in the US

[Marin David Condic]

I'd have to agree that in the early days of Ada, she basically shot herself
in the foot by the bad quality (and huge expense!) of the compilers that
first appeared. People became convinced that Ada would never work because it
was "too complex" for anyone to build a descent compiler for the language.

Nowadays, the world is considerably different. Computers got more powerful
and Ada compilers have become significantly better. Compiler technology now
is such that Ada can produce code as good, or better, than just about any
other popular language. Also, you have GNAT freely available and a number of
other compilers (such as RR and Aonix) that are available at affordable
prices. Maybe back in 1983, Ada was "ahead of its time" but today all the
right things are in place to enable one to seriously consider Ada for any
development effort.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Lieven Marchand" <mal@wyrd.be> wrote in message
news:m33da68fvk.fsf@localhost.localdomain...
> It might. When I first encountered Ada in college, I hated it, partly
> because of a very bad compiler (a slow horror that tried to correct
> errors by inserting random tokens under VM/CMS). Now that I've had
> some experience with maintaining large programs hacked on by many
> people over the years, I start to appreciate a lot of the Ada
> philosophy.
>

Re: Universities in the US - Garbage Collector for GNAT?

[Matthias Kretschmer]

Another I think, why Ada will get usefull in future, is that the projects get larger and if you have more code to maintain it is hard if the language allows tricks, like C and C++ do. The clarity of Ada-code makes it much easier to maintain even code of other people. Even Java hasn't eliminated all "evil" things yet. Ada does not have much nasty tricks (I didn't saw one yet ...). But this brings me to another point - sometime ago there was a thread about Garbage Collector for GNAT (just mentioned an existing one for gnu c-compiler would work iirc) - someone has a working solution?

mfg Matthias Kretschmer

Re: Universities in the US - Garbage Collector for GNAT?

[Marin David Condic]

Well, there are certainly "evil" things you can do in Ada. It's never been
the least bit hard to write bad code in any language. Just for instance: Ada
gives you lots of direct access to the machine (machine code & addresses),
representations of data, multi-tasking, etc. Any of these things can be very
powerful if used judiciously. Its very easy to imagine how with multiple
tasks running in parallel and being used by someone unfamiliar with tasking
how it could easily make a program *very* difficult to maintain or debug!
(Just think of shared access by multiple threads to some resource.)

As for Garbage Collection: Observations by one or more compiler vendors seem
to indicate that while occasionally people make noise about it, nobody seems
to want it bad enough to make it a priority. Additionally, Ada typically
uses far less dynamically allocated memory and far fewer pointers than what
programmers commonly use in C/C++. Since in most garden variety programs the
bulk of allocation is static or off the stack, it is less of an issue.
Thirdly, lots of programmers when building their own dynamic data
structures, take advantage of Unchecked_Deallocation and Finalization to
clean up memory that might be hanging around, so garbage collection seems a
lot less necessary. (Assuming that for your implementation,
Unchecked_Deallocation ends up returning the memory to the system - it may
not...) Generally, it just doesn't seem important enough to create a strong
constituency.

Of course now I've probably just stepped into the doodoo and will be
scraping it off of my shoes for days. The GC fans will come out of the
woodwork and start explaining to me why the world is going to come to a halt
if we don't start the revolution and "Free The Mallocs!" :-) Oh well. Some
of these guys need the flame-bait or their blood starts to settle down at
their ankles.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Matthias Kretschmer" <McCratch@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:20010516210146.7f2a83ac.McCratch@gmx.net...
> Another I think, why Ada will get usefull in future, is that the projects
get larger and if you have more code to maintain it is hard if the language
allows tricks, like C and C++ do. The clarity of Ada-code makes it much
easier to maintain even code of other people. Even Java hasn't eliminated
all "evil" things yet. Ada does not have much nasty tricks (I didn't saw one
yet ...). But this brings me to another point - sometime ago there was a
thread about Garbage Collector for GNAT (just mentioned an existing one for
gnu c-compiler would work iirc) - someone has a working solution?
>
> mfg Matthias Kretschmer

Re: Universities in the US - Garbage Collector for GNAT?

[Matthias Kretschmer]

On Wed, 16 May 2001 15:35:50 -0400
"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote:

> Well, there are certainly "evil" things you can do in Ada. It's never been
> the least bit hard to write bad code in any language. Just for instance: Ada
> gives you lots of direct access to the machine (machine code & addresses),
> representations of data, multi-tasking, etc. Any of these things can be very
> powerful if used judiciously. Its very easy to imagine how with multiple
> tasks running in parallel and being used by someone unfamiliar with tasking
> how it could easily make a program *very* difficult to maintain or debug!
> (Just think of shared access by multiple threads to some resource.)

Of course it is always up to the programmer, but most projects aren't done by one programmer and if there are tricks they are used I would say - maybe not all, but they are used. The representation of data is just something you use to give the compiler a hint how to handle it, instructing the compiler to use specific memory-addresses is a "feature" you need in some projects and there it has to be used carefully, in other projects it should be used (so not all addresses should be supported by the OS in a modern multitasking/multiprocessing environment). In my opion you can always do evil things with threads. I should change my comment to: You can do more evil things in language one than in language two. - but this depends on what is considered evil.

> 
> As for Garbage Collection: Observations by one or more compiler vendors seem
> to indicate that while occasionally people make noise about it, nobody seems
> to want it bad enough to make it a priority. Additionally, Ada typically
> uses far less dynamically allocated memory and far fewer pointers than what
> programmers commonly use in C/C++. Since in most garden variety programs the
> bulk of allocation is static or off the stack, it is less of an issue.
> Thirdly, lots of programmers when building their own dynamic data
> structures, take advantage of Unchecked_Deallocation and Finalization to
> clean up memory that might be hanging around, so garbage collection seems a
> lot less necessary. (Assuming that for your implementation,
> Unchecked_Deallocation ends up returning the memory to the system - it may
> not...) Generally, it just doesn't seem important enough to create a strong
> constituency.
> 

Well in some projects it could be usefull and in others you don't need it, but as long as there exists the possibility and usage I won't miss it. :-) - Grown up with Borland Pascal it seems totally natural to deallocate memory for yourself, but sometimes I don't want to think of memory ... - I hoped someone got gnat working with a GC.

Re: Universities in the US

[Evan Prodromou]

>>>>> "MDC" == Marin David Condic <fake@email> writes:

    MDC> Or more accurately, some languages hang on like the
    MDC> California Condor - only a dozen or so in existence with a
    MDC> small team of admirers struggling valiantly to keep them
    MDC> alive. :-)

s/admirers/reluctant adepts/

~ESP

-- 
Evan Prodromou
evan@prodromou.san-francisco.ca.us

Re: Universities in the US

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9drk4t$hjk$1@news3.cadvision.com>, Wade Humeniuk says...
>"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
>news:W8cM6.2413$6j3.206605@www.newsranger.com...
>> Despite all the heat here about the "best" language, the really important
>thing
>> is that you get exposed to *multiple* languages during your time as a
>student.
>> Languages come and go.
>
>Lisp has just come, it has not gone yet.  Name a language that has gone.

That's a good point. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say "languages
come", but then it wouldn't have been the old saying that we all understand.
Please pardon my minor inaccuracy in the service of making a point about the
relative importance of any one language.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Universities in the US

[David Thornley]

In article <9drk4t$hjk$1@news3.cadvision.com>,
Wade Humeniuk <humeniuw@cadvision.com> wrote:
>
>Lisp has just come, it has not gone yet.  Name a language that has gone.
>
ZIL, or Zork Implementation (?) Language, a Lisp-like language
developed by Infocom to write text adventures.  It may be gone
forever, although one text adventure fan has reported a possible
lead recently.  (It was capable of being used as a general purpose
programming language, although there were always much better
choices.  The Z-code it produced has been reverse-engineered and
there is a C-like language called Inform that compiles to it now,
with which dozens of people write new text adventures.  The language
may be gone, but the tradition lives on.)

--
David H. Thornley                        | If you want my opinion, ask.
david@thornley.net                       | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-

Re: Universities in the US

[Gary Scott]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <9drfcr$du11@news-dxb>, Faisal Halim says...
> >So I would like to know which Unis in New York teach CS in a way that is
> >more beneficial for the students, teach languages in the context of the job
> >required, and at the same time are affordable.
> 
> Well, two of the principles behind the GNU Ada compiler are professors at NYU. I
> don't know what they teach their CS1 students, but I suspect there are courses
> there that use Ada.
> 
> Despite all the heat here about the "best" language, the really important thing
> is that you get exposed to *multiple* languages during your time as a student.

> Languages come and go. 

Except for Fortran, which will live indefinitely, apparently.

> You need to learn how to *learn* a new language. A good
> CS program will do that for you, so the most important thing for a prospective
> student is to just find a good CS program.
> 
> There is *much* more to being a good software engineer than just knowing the
> proper programming language(s). A good CS program should give you the
> oppertunity to learn that other stuff as well.
> 
> ---
> T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
>           home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Universities in the US

[Eric de Groot]

When you say New York I'm assuming you'll be in the city, and not upstate
somewhere.  If so, don't forget to check out jersey.  Right across the river
there's Stevens IT (http://www.stevens-tech.edu/) in hoboken, and in newark
you've got NJIT (http://www.njit.edu/) and also Rutgers Newark which I've
heard has a pretty decent cs program too.  NJIT's cs program starts with
c++.  All are a short train ride away from nyc.

-Eric


"Faisal Halim" <faisal_halim@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9drfcr$du11@news-dxb...
> Assalaamu 'alaikum,
>
> Thank you all for your replies to my question about which programming
> language is best suited for beginners. You people have convinced me that
> LISP and ADA rule.
>
> One thing though, when I searched for U.S. universities in New York
> offering Computer Science courses, I actually came across a lot of Unis
> (universities) which start off with C++, or worse yet, Visual C++!
>
> I will have to enter the U.S. as a foreign student, and as my uncle lives
> in New York, that is where I will have to study.
>
> So I would like to know which Unis in New York teach CS in a way that is
> more beneficial for the students, teach languages in the context of the
job
> required, and at the same time are affordable.
>
> Thank you all for your kind feedback and co-operation.
>
> Faisal Halim
> 15th May, 2001