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=1.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,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: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: jtbell@presby.edu (Jon Bell) Subject: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal? Date: 1996/07/20 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 169032872 references: <4sf9e7$kl7@news.jump.net> <4spj1f$prf@news.pacifier.com> <4spkdm$faa@solutions.solon.com> organization: Presbyterian College, Clinton, South Carolina USA newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-07-20T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Peter Seebach wrote: >I don't think it's fair or appropriate to blame C for the vast population of >idiots who get involved with it. It's an excellent language in some ways, >which led to its eventual success in some fields, which led to a lot of utter >morons trying to use it, or write books about it. It also led to C being used as a "Swiss-army-knife" language, often in areas in which another language would be a better choice. >This doesn't mean it can't be used well; although C doesn't always help you >write good code, it certainly doesn't prevent you from doing so. Agreed. By the same token, it's perfectly possible to design good programs and write good code in older versions of Fortran or BASIC. But you have to take a lot more care when doing this; you have to invent your own "building blocks" for good design, and you have to use them consistently. Languages with good modularizing features built into them make this easier. When someone is beginning to program, it's hard enough already to get them to use these modularizing features, even when they're built in, because they require some (gasp!) thought and planning before coding. When they have to "simulate" these features using lower-level constructs, it just makes more work for them, and they resist even more strongly. -- Jon Bell Presbyterian College Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA [for beginner's Usenet info, see http://cs1.presby.edu/~jtbell/usenet/]