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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public 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: smosha@most.fw.hac.com (Stephen M O'Shaughnessy) Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/07/31 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 171442716 sender: usenet@most.fw.hac.com x-nntp-posting-host: smosha references: <01bb73e3.1c6a0060$6bf467ce@dave.iceslimited.com> <1996Jul20.124025.122789@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <01bb7b06$311fabc0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> organization: MESC mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-07-31T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: > > >>it would be as if EE students were taught IC design in the first >>course, and were only given resisters, capacitors, ohm's law, >>etc. in their senior year, almost as an afterthought! > You are misleading here. Your analogy assumes EE don't need the basics, which everyone knows to be absurd. And you use that absurdity to prove IC design should not be taught first. But there is no link between one and the other. By IC design do you mean the design of the ICs themselves or designing circuits with ICs? ICs are resistors, capacitors and semiconductors. So designing ICs without a knowledge of these basic elements would be impossible. In this case you are correct but have no point. But if you are talking about designing with, say, logic ICs, I would argue that it can easily be done without a knowlege of resistors, capacitors, transistors or even ohms law. However, you would not be a student learning EE. The point I am trying to make is that we must be careful about what basics are necessary to learning a new skill. I don't know much about Lady Lovelace (Namesake of the Ada programming language). I wonder how much of what we today call the basics did she know and understand? I don't think she understood bytes and bits. I am sure, with her math background, she knew about number bases but I don't believe she had a working knowledge of hexidecimal numbers. Yet she was able to conceive a *computer* language of sorts and use it to solve real world problems on a machine that did not then, nor did it ever exist. She is purported to be the first programmer. Start with the abstract.