Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Davide Bionda]

>there are not more chinese speakers than english.
>if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
>widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want it
>that way ;)

Then you should try to learn it ;-)

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Timo Salmi]

In article <3471428A.6193@erdw.ethz.ch>,
Davide Bionda  <bionda@erdw.ethz.ch> wrote:
(Concerning the parody about 
ADA and Pascal SUCK, C,C++, and Java are the only langauges you need!)
:>there are not more chinese speakers than english.
:>if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
:>widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want it
:>that way ;)
:
:Then you should try to learn it ;-)

But, but ... the Americans want it that way.

   All the best, Timo  (aka Perfesser Pundit in news:rec.humor)

(Folloups to news:rec.humor _*ONLY*_)

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ archives 193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland

Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mark Wilden]

John Rickard wrote:
> 
> why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
> and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?

Three reasons:

1) "RE learning" requires a hyphen.

2) "spoke" should be "spoken."

3) In "around 1-3", "around" is redundant.

Hey, you asked. :)

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Billy Chambless]

In article <64sql2$k0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>, "John Rickard" <saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> writes:

|> why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
|> and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?

You forgot to mention your SAT scores.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Jean-Sebastien Payette]

John Rickard wrote in message <64sql2$k0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>...
>why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?


I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings and file
manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know both
language (unlike you!!)

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Dennis Weldy]

It is? Care to offer a bit of proof there?
Standard Pascal was, last I looked woefully lacking in file handling.
Strings were packed arrays of chars (much like C).

Now, perhaps y'mean Object Pascal, from Borland? Yes, that would be better
at handling objects "better" than C, since C doesn't directly support the OO
paradigm. Of course, if y'try to compare it to C++....then I would disagree
(and yes, I do know Object Pascal (BP 7.0)).

Dennis

Jean-Sebastien Payette wrote in message
<64suum$5oo$1@weber.videotron.net>...
>
>John Rickard wrote in message <64sql2$k0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>...
>>why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>>and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
>
>
>I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
>Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings and file
>manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know both
>language (unlike you!!)
>
>

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Jean-Sebastien Payette]

Dennis Weldy wrote in message ...
>It is? Care to offer a bit of proof there?
>Standard Pascal was, last I looked woefully lacking in file handling.
>Strings were packed arrays of chars (much like C).
>
>Now, perhaps y'mean Object Pascal, from Borland? Yes, that would be better
>at handling objects "better" than C, since C doesn't directly support the
OO
>paradigm. Of course, if y'try to compare it to C++....then I would disagree
>(and yes, I do know Object Pascal (BP 7.0)).
>
>Dennis
>


Ok sorry I was talking about C++, I never really code in pure C.
I must agree that I was a little overhelm stating that object pascal was
better than C ( oups! C++) but not string manipulation. I hate string
manipulation in C++. Damn strdup() that make everything fall appart...
and file manipulation is file manipulation, you can't really tell appart any
of the two languages because the functions are nearly the same in both.And
btw, in pascal, you can have pointer to string (like in C) but they are more
easy to handle!

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John Rickard]

why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
-- 
--
Remove .DONTSPAMME from my
email address to send me REAL email.
--

Davide Bionda <bionda@erdw.ethz.ch> wrote in article
<3471428A.6193@erdw.ethz.ch>...
: >there are not more chinese speakers than english.
: >if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
: >widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want
it
: >that way ;)
: 
: Then you should try to learn it ;-)
: 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Chieh Cheng]

>John Black wrote:
>>
>> ADA and Pascal are two of the most useless inventions Man has ever
>> wasted space on this planet with.  These languages are hard to learn,
>> have zero applications, and people who only know these languages can
>> only find jobs at Taco Bell!  Smart programmers spend their time
>> learning only C, C++, and Java in that order.

Obviously, you do not understand the benefits of learning a variety of
different computer languages. If you don't learn LISP, you will never
fully understand the capability and limitation of C and C++. If you
are, or were, a computer science student, I would have been ashamed of
your CS department.

CC
--
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8145/
Up the mountain, down the slope.
Around the tree trunks, past the streams.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Chieh Cheng]

For one thing, your grammer sucks. And learn to capitalize. Isn't
ironic when an American who learned English since he/she was born,
write English worse than people with other nationalities?

On 18 Nov 1997 19:34:58 GMT, "John Rickard"
<saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> wrote:

>why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
>
>Davide Bionda <bionda@erdw.ethz.ch> wrote in article
><3471428A.6193@erdw.ethz.ch>...
>: >there are not more chinese speakers than english.
>: >if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
>: >widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want
>it
>: >that way ;)
>: 
>: Then you should try to learn it ;-)
>: 

CC
--
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8145/
Up the mountain, down the slope.
Around the tree trunks, past the streams.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[JCore]

On 17 Nov 1997 23:57:47 GMT, "John Rickard"
<saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> wrote:

>there are not more chinese speakers than english.
>if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
>widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want it
>that way ;)

Um, actually Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world.
Sorry to have to be the American to break it to you.  Oh yeh, and I
agree with the original article too.

-JCore

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Dr E. Buxbaum]

Ingemar Ragnemalm wrote:

> Couldn't you at least flame Pascal and ADA in favor of
> something *interesting*, like Forth, Scheme or PDP-11
> assembler? Joining the majority to flame the minority,
> sheesh. Boring.

I always thought C WAS the PDP-11 macro assembler!

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[system]

"John Rickard" wrote:
>Davide Bionda <bionda@erdw.ethz.ch> wrote:
>>"John Rickard" wrote:

>why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?

>>>there are not more chinese speakers than english.
>>>if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
>>>widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want
>>>it that way ;)

>>Then you should try to learn it ;-)
 
You know, when I first read this, I thought John was having a bit of fun
and was a bit taken aback by the responses he got, then I read his
reply to a comment from one of our French-Canadian collegues and I
started to understand...

================================================================================
"John Rickard" <saskan@spam.worldnet.spam.att.spam.net.spam>
>J-S Payette wrote:

>>I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^And you should so you can learn proper
>vocabulary skills.

Given the construction of the above sentence/phrase I wouldn't
be so quick to be critical of others' language abilities.
At least you're capitalizing.

>>Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings and file
>>manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know both
>>language (unlike you!!)

>And how do you know what languages I know? 

I don't know about languages, but given the amount of formatting I
had to do to make this message legible I would say you don't know
much about newsreaders.

>So if you want a fight about who knows more we can skip the whole 
>programming aspect and take this a intelectual level and have a 
>battle of the wits.  And I can promise you I will win.

<heh> I think that is best left without explicit comment :)

<no snip between the above paragraph and the below 7 lines>

>-
>Damn near any idiot can program.  But it takes a Genius to become
>successful at it.
>-
>hardly, I can prove rather easily that I can speak my language better
>than you. I mean I have only been speaking it since I have been able
>to speak.

Please go find a style book and look up continuity and making transitions.

>As for talking better than me... Try reading you message and tell me
>you don't talk like a 12 year old.

Try rereading your messages and understand that:
1) you can't take a joke,
2) your intuitive grammer sucks
3) some people might think your emotional age matches Jean's skills
	at his 2nd written/spoken language.

Chill,
Robert

Morphis@physics.niu.edu
Real Women change tires			abuse@uu.net postmaster@uu.net
Real Men change diapers                 security@uu.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Matt Corey]

The Java v. Ada v. C v. C++ v. Pascal v. Tcl v. Forth v. Scheme v. Eiffel v.
Sather v. Awk v. Perl v. Basic v. B v. CLOS  ( breath ) v. Flavors v. RPG v.
COBOL v. Fortran v. Clipper v. Modulax v. ObjectiveC v. PL/1 v. PLM v.
Assembler v. Rexx v. Smalltalk v. Python language war has now added English.
:-)


--
Matthew F. Corey    mcorey@itsnet.com
Software Engineer
Rigaku USA/MSC  http://www.msc.com

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mark Wilden]

Michael Rubenstein wrote:
> 
> According to the World Almanac there are almost twice as many speakers
> of Mandarin (999 million) as of English (487 million).

What year was that? Those figures seem suspect. They mean that over 4.5
billion people speak neither language.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John Rickard]

>I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^And you should so you can learn proper
vocabulary skills.
>Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings
and file
>manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know
both
>language (unlike you!!)
And how do you know what languages I know?  You don't know the first
thing about me other than I read this newsgroup.  For your infomation
I do not know C and do not intend to learn it.  I do know TP Dos, TP
Win, QuickBasic, VB3, VB4, and Visual Dialogscript.  So if you want a
fight about who knows more we can skip the whole programming aspect
and take this a intelectual level and have a battle of the wits.  And
I can promise you I will win.
-
Damn near any idiot can program.  But it takes a Genius to become
successful at it.
-
hardly, I can prove rather easily that I can speak my language better
than you. I mean I have only been speaking it since I have been able
to speak.
As for talking better than me... Try reading you message and tell me
you don't talk like a 12 year old.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Chieh Cheng]

On Wed, 19 Nov 1997 15:01:11 GMT, 70523.3077@compuserve.com (Gary A.
Wiltshire) wrote:

>chiehcheng@iname.com (Chieh Cheng) wrote:
>.....
>>For one thing, your grammer sucks. And learn to capitalize. Isn't
>>ironic when an American who learned English since he/she was born,
>>write English worse than people with other nationalities?
>.....
>I don't normally pick on people for their English errors, particularly
>someone who's learned it as a second language.  Since you've seen fit
>to do that, be advised that it is grammAr, not grammEr!  The second
>sentence above is (at least) stylistically dubious.  The third is
>plainly ungrammatical.  Let's lighten up a bit and criticize CONTENT
>of posts -- there is a lot of meat there.
>
>   --- Gary Wiltshire

You are absolutely right. I am not very good with English, but I was
speaking for other people who learned their second language must
better than I did. Otherwise, I would have compared him to myself. And
again, you're right. I'll chill out a bit.

CC
--
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8145/
Up the mountain, down the slope.
Around the tree trunks, past the streams.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Kaz Kylheku]

In article <64vpcn$ni7@corn.cso.niu.edu>,
 <system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu> wrote:
>kaz@helios.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
>>Touche. That could be a typo.
>
>Probably, but since this was a response to a criticism based on the typos
>made by John you would think he would be a bit more carefull.

Carefull? :) Is that a blunder or an instance of irony?

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John R. Reagan]

In article <YSQz$BJ98GA.158@news2.ingr.com>, "Dennis Weldy" <nojunkmail@ever.com> writes...
>Standard Pascal was, last I looked woefully lacking in file handling.
>Strings were packed arrays of chars (much like C).
> 
>Now, perhaps y'mean Object Pascal, from Borland? Yes, that would be better
>at handling objects "better" than C, since C doesn't directly support the OO
>paradigm. Of course, if y'try to compare it to C++....then I would disagree
>(and yes, I do know Object Pascal (BP 7.0)).

I guess you haven't looked since 1989 then.  Extended Pascal added a
real STRING type and many file handling routines.

The committee also authored a object-oriented extensions in Pascal that
looks more like Java or Object Pascal on the Apple than TP or C++.

--
John Reagan
DEC Pascal Project Leader
Application Compilers and Environments
Digital Equipment Corporation
reagan@hiyall.enet.dec.com
Disclaimer:  The opinions and statements expressed by me are not
             necessarily those of Digital Equipment Corporation.
--

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Kaz Kylheku]

In article <34738872.783@gsg.eds.com>,
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <nospam@gsg.eds.com> wrote:
>Matt Corey wrote:
>> 
>>   C:  The power and functionality of assembly language with the
>> usability and readability of assembly language.  ;-)
>
>That's on a good day; the C preprocessor has less power and
>functionality than any macro language I've used in decades. And some C

That's probably a good thing. The current preprocessor is abused enough as it
is.  Because it's not too complicated, one can reasonably wade through some
of the worst abuses.

TeX is a powerful macro language; ever try to debug those important ``include''
files that come with the distribution? Aaaaargh... The problem with macro
languages is that something can undergo so many confusing levels of expansion
that it becomes difficult, if not nearly impossible to understand what is going
on.

Consider that the compiler for Plan 9 C actually has a _simplified_ preprocessor
(with respect to the requirements of ANSI C).

>constructs are more arcane that assembler language. 

Which ones? I would vote for the possibility of side effects causing undefined
behaviors unheard of in assembly language. That has more to do with the way
a construct is used. Still, to me that is the single worst aspect of the C language,
and one of the least poorly understood by the average joe who fancies himself
a programmer. It's amazing how often in comp.lang.c we get some buffoon who claims
that his compiler is incorrectly translating some expression that obviously violates
the rules with respect to side effects.

>> Also, it's Ada, not ADA.  That's the people who approve your
>> toothbrushes.  :-)
>
>Yes, but see below.
> 
>> in Tcl or Awk.  
>
>Shouldn't that be AWK, since it's named after the authors?

Touche! :) And TCL is also an acronym, is in not? Tool Command Language or some
such thing.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Chuck Adams]

In article <YSQz$BJ98GA.158@news2.ingr.com>, "Dennis Weldy" <nojunkmail@ever.com> wrote:
>It is? Care to offer a bit of proof there?
>Standard Pascal was, last I looked woefully lacking in file handling.
>Strings were packed arrays of chars (much like C).

Incorrect, standard pascal strings have their length encoded in them and are a 
primitive type.  delphi allows both pascal strings and null-terminated c 
strings (not always interchangeable).

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Dennis Weldy]

Ok, jumping on the content of Chieh's post, if you'll note he merely ASSUMES
the idividual is American, when there are penty of other countries where the
original poster couldve learned English from 1-3 years of age. England,
Ireland, Canada, Australia,.... all sorts of places :)

Dennis
Gary A. Wiltshire <70523.3077@compuserve.com> wrote in message
<3472e573.3440168@news.albany.net>...
>chiehcheng@iname.com (Chieh Cheng) wrote:
>.....
>>For one thing, your grammer sucks. And learn to capitalize. Isn't
>>ironic when an American who learned English since he/she was born,
>>write English worse than people with other nationalities?
>.....
>I don't normally pick on people for their English errors, particularly
>someone who's learned it as a second language.  Since you've seen fit
>to do that, be advised that it is grammAr, not grammEr!  The second
>sentence above is (at least) stylistically dubious.  The third is
>plainly ungrammatical.  Let's lighten up a bit and criticize CONTENT
>of posts -- there is a lot of meat there.
>
>   --- Gary Wiltshire

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John Rickard]

Yea thats right. MY language is "American" English.  not English.
-- 
--
Remove "spam" from my
email address to send me REAL email.
--

Davide Bionda <bionda@erdw.ethz.ch> wrote in article
<347301BC.3AB7@erdw.ethz.ch>...
: >hardly, I can prove rather easily that I can speak my language
better
: >than you.
: 
: Right, that's the point: YOUR language, not english.
: 
: Take care
: Davide
: 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Kaz Kylheku]

In article <3471F184.7924@mWilden.com>, Mark Wilden  <Mark@mWilden.com> wrote:
>John Rickard wrote:
>> 
>> why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>> and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
>
>Three reasons:
>
>1) "RE learning" requires a hyphen.

Hyphens are not part of the language, they are just an orthographic convention. 

If you disagree, then tell me what sound the hyphen makes in the pronounciation
of ``re-learning''? ;)

Incidentally, re-learning would actually be written relearning. Hyphenation is
only used when words are combined in an unusual way, particularly two nouns.
When a certain combination becomes commonplace, the hyphen disappears.
A hyphen need not be used to separate a prefix from a word.  Do you write
``re-generate'', ``un-happy'', or ``black-board'' instead of ``regenerate'',
``unhappy'' or ``blackboard''?

Of course, hackers are divided on this issue. You have the BlackBoard camp, and
the black_board camp. :)))

In English, nouns can be combined simply by juxtaposition to form compound
nouns. For example:

    ``law school entrance requirement examination result''

This combination could serve, in a sentence, in the place of a simple noun.

Since this combination is arbitrary, rather than an idiom that often appears in
the language, we do not write it using hyphens between the nouns. (But contrast
this to German, in whose writing system strings of nouns are commonly pasted
together without whitespace).

In the English, when two nouns tend to be commonly associated, people start
writing the hyphen. Eventually, when two words meld to the point that the
meaning of the sum is more than the combination of the meanings of the two
parts, the words are simply written together. In effect, a new word results. A
blackboard is more than just a board that is black. 

>2) "spoke" should be "spoken."

Touche. That could be a typo. No native speaker of English would say ``I have
understood and (I have) spoke'' unless he or she happened to blunder. It's
awfully faulty parallelism. :) 

- Kaz (an English speaker since the age of twelve).

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]

Chieh Cheng wrote:
 
> Obviously, you do not understand the benefits of learning a variety of
> different computer languages. If you don't learn LISP, you will never
> fully understand the capability and limitation of C and C++. 

Oh, no! Please don't start a LISP versus Prolog debate!

-- 

                        Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
                        Senior Software SE

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Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mark Wilden]

Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> 
> Hyphens are not part of the language, they are just an orthographic convention.

And what do you suppose "orthographic conventions" are part of, if not
the language? Are you saying there is no difference between "release"
and "re-lease"?

> If you disagree, then tell me what sound the hyphen makes in the pronounciation
> of ``re-learning''? ;)

Only if you tell me what sound the "p" makes in "ptarmigan." Sound is
just one component of language.

> Incidentally, re-learning would actually be written relearning. Hyphenation is
> only used when words are combined in an unusual way, particularly two nouns.

That's actually true, according to modern style. For example, I recently
won a battle over how to spell "multiplayer" in a manual, against those
who preferred to hyphenate it.

> When a certain combination becomes commonplace, the hyphen disappears.

The guy wrote "re learning." A hyphen could have been used, or it could
have been made one word, I agree.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]

Dr E. Buxbaum wrote:

> I always thought C WAS the PDP-11 macro assembler!

No; in fact, C was original done on a more primitive machine, the PDP-7.
While the ++ and -- operators were clearly inspired by the equivalent
macine instructions, the C preprocessor has less expressive power than
the macro facility of any assembler that I am familiar with.

It might be fair to say that C is BCPL, although I would consider that
there were too many changes from BCPL to B to C for me to defend such a
claim.

-- 

                        Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
                        Senior Software SE

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Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mike Smith]

John Rickard <saskan@spam.worldnet.spam.att.spam.net.spam> wrote in article
<64vdi2$88b@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>...
> Yea thats right. MY language is "American" English.  not English.
> -- 
> --
> Remove "spam" from my
> email address to send me REAL email.
> --

No.  Your language, judging from your posts on this newsgroup, is some
degenerate form of English where grammar and syntax have been "dumbed down"
so that people such as yourself don't need to feel shame in breaking the
"rules", or lack thereof.

--Mike Smith

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John Rickard]

They assumed I was american BECAUSE I mentioned the fact I was in I
beleive the 2nd post I made in my defense.
-- 
--
Remove "spam" from my
email address to send me REAL email.
--

Dennis Weldy <nojunkmail@ever.com> wrote in article
<32nusbR98GA.70@news2.ingr.com>...
: Ok, jumping on the content of Chieh's post, if you'll note he
merely ASSUMES
: the idividual is American, when there are penty of other countries
where the
: original poster couldve learned English from 1-3 years of age.
England,
: Ireland, Canada, Australia,.... all sorts of places :)
: 
: Dennis
: Gary A. Wiltshire <70523.3077@compuserve.com> wrote in message
: <3472e573.3440168@news.albany.net>...
: >chiehcheng@iname.com (Chieh Cheng) wrote:
: >.....
: >>For one thing, your grammer sucks. And learn to capitalize. Isn't
: >>ironic when an American who learned English since he/she was
born,
: >>write English worse than people with other nationalities?
: >.....
: >I don't normally pick on people for their English errors,
particularly
: >someone who's learned it as a second language.  Since you've seen
fit
: >to do that, be advised that it is grammAr, not grammEr!  The
second
: >sentence above is (at least) stylistically dubious.  The third is
: >plainly ungrammatical.  Let's lighten up a bit and criticize
CONTENT
: >of posts -- there is a lot of meat there.
: >
: >   --- Gary Wiltshire
: 
: 
: 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Kaz Kylheku]

In article <34733969.13D5@gsg.eds.com>,
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <nospam@gsg.eds.com> wrote:
>Dr E. Buxbaum wrote:
>
>> I always thought C WAS the PDP-11 macro assembler!
>
>No; in fact, C was original done on a more primitive machine, the PDP-7.

No it wasn't. The language that Ken Thompson developed for the PDP-7 was called
B.

C was developed by Dennis Ritchie using the PDP-11. There is a myth surrounding

>While the ++ and -- operators were clearly inspired by the equivalent
>macine instructions, the C preprocessor has less expressive power than
>the macro facility of any assembler that I am familiar with.

That is a myth which is false. The ++ and -- operators were in the B language
that was implemented on the PDP-7, which had no such instructions. They
are an invention of Ken Thompson alone.

The PDP-7 did actually have some auto-increment memory cells. While they may
have suggested to Ken the idea for these operators, they were not used in their
implementation.

C inherited its ++ and -- operators from B, and not from the PDP-11 instruction
set as the widespread myth would have it.

>It might be fair to say that C is BCPL, although I would consider that
>there were too many changes from BCPL to B to C for me to defend such a
>claim.

There are similarities between C and BCPL, but that can also be said of C and
<insert language name here>. One chief differece is that BCPL is not byte
oriented but cell oriented. Pointers are unscaled and reference cells, not
individual bytes. The meaning of a cell depends on the applied operation.
Individual bytes are packed into cells, and are referenced using special
operators that take into account the packing. This is quite different from C's
comprehensive type system, byte oriented nature, and pointers that
automatically scale (not to mention vast differences between the syntaxes).

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]

Matt Corey wrote:
> 
>   C:  The power and functionality of assembly language with the
> usability and readability of assembly language.  ;-)

That's on a good day; the C preprocessor has less power and
functionality than any macro language I've used in decades. And some C
constructs are more arcane that assembler language. 

OTOH, I remember defending a particualr C construct against the charge
that it was opaque and poor practice.

> Also, it's Ada, not ADA.  That's the people who approve your
> toothbrushes.  :-)

Yes, but see below.
 
> in Tcl or Awk.  

Shouldn't that be AWK, since it's named after the authors?

-- 

                        Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
                        Senior Software SE

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Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[tmt]

On 19 Nov 1997 00:54:55 GMT, "Cynthia & Bill" <cbt1213@clark.net>
wrote:

>I won't get into the debate between English, Chinese, or any other natural
>language.
>
>However...
>I too know both C (and C++) and Pascal.  (As well as a lot of other comp
>langauges.)
>I prefer C/C++ simply because it is used by the majority (on PC's and Unix
>boxes.)
>I also know RPG and COBOL.
>On mainframes I opt for COBOL.
>On AS/400's, RPG is my langauge of choice.
>On PC's and Unix boxes, I use C.  (And I'm starting to use Java.)
>
>Except for undergraduate work, I have yet to find Pascal the langauge
>of choice of the majority on any platform.
Pascal is the prefered language for developers of games.  Also it is
easier to debug Pascal prorgams than C/C++ programs.
Also Pascal is now available with MMX  technology. Check it out at
www.tmt.com
>
>Viva la difference!  But I'll (personally) take C over Pascal any day.
>
>(BTW, in case you can't tell - I'm a white American.  If I were black
>I might have more empathy for the minority.  I'm not, so I don't.  :-)
>
>(BTW BTW - Jean-Sebastien your English is better than my French
>will ever be.  Congratulations on your bi-lingualality (at least.))
>
>Jean-Sebastien Payette <jeanspayette@videotron.ca> wrote in article
><64suum$5oo$1@weber.videotron.net>...
>> 
>> John Rickard wrote in message <64sql2$k0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>...
>> >why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>> >and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
>> 
>> 
>> I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
>> Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings and
>file
>> manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know both
>> language (unlike you!!)
>> 
>> 
>> 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Cynthia & Bill]

I won't get into the debate between English, Chinese, or any other natural
language.

However...
I too know both C (and C++) and Pascal.  (As well as a lot of other comp
langauges.)
I prefer C/C++ simply because it is used by the majority (on PC's and Unix
boxes.)
I also know RPG and COBOL.
On mainframes I opt for COBOL.
On AS/400's, RPG is my langauge of choice.
On PC's and Unix boxes, I use C.  (And I'm starting to use Java.)

Except for undergraduate work, I have yet to find Pascal the langauge
of choice of the majority on any platform.

Viva la difference!  But I'll (personally) take C over Pascal any day.

(BTW, in case you can't tell - I'm a white American.  If I were black
I might have more empathy for the minority.  I'm not, so I don't.  :-)

(BTW BTW - Jean-Sebastien your English is better than my French
will ever be.  Congratulations on your bi-lingualality (at least.))

Jean-Sebastien Payette <jeanspayette@videotron.ca> wrote in article
<64suum$5oo$1@weber.videotron.net>...
> 
> John Rickard wrote in message <64sql2$k0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>...
> >why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
> >and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
> 
> 
> I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
> Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings and
file
> manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know both
> language (unlike you!!)
> 
> 
> 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John Rickard]

When I posted that message my grammar was proper.
-- 
--
Remove "spam" from my
email address to send me REAL email.
--

Chieh Cheng <chiehcheng@iname.com> wrote in article
<34720007.344948449@serve.installshield.com>...
: For one thing, your grammer sucks. And learn to capitalize. Isn't
: ironic when an American who learned English since he/she was born,
: write English worse than people with other nationalities?
: 
: On 18 Nov 1997 19:34:58 GMT, "John Rickard"
: <saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> wrote:
: 
: >why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have
understood
: >and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
: >
: >Davide Bionda <bionda@erdw.ethz.ch> wrote in article
: ><3471428A.6193@erdw.ethz.ch>...
: >: >there are not more chinese speakers than english.
: >: >if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
: >: >widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans
want
: >it
: >: >that way ;)
: >: 
: >: Then you should try to learn it ;-)
: >: 
: 
: CC
: --
: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8145/
: Up the mountain, down the slope.
: Around the tree trunks, past the streams.
: 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Les Hazlewood]

In article <3471F184.7924@mWilden.com>, Mark Wilden <Mark@mWilden.com> wrote:

> John Rickard wrote:
> > 
> > why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
> > and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
> 
> Three reasons:
> 
> 1) "RE learning" requires a hyphen.
> 
> 2) "spoke" should be "spoken."
> 
> 3) In "around 1-3", "around" is redundant.
> 
> Hey, you asked. :)


Their his know knead too no ow too right English  :-)

-- 
Ignore the anti-spamming address given above and sent any replies to:

Email : hazlewlj@aston.ac.uk
Tel   : +44 (0)121 359 3611 x 4271
Fax:  : +44 (0)121 333 6215
Smail : Dr L J Hazlewood, Department of Computer Science,
        Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham B4 7ET,
        United Kingdom

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Gary A. Wiltshire]

chiehcheng@iname.com (Chieh Cheng) wrote:
.....
>For one thing, your grammer sucks. And learn to capitalize. Isn't
>ironic when an American who learned English since he/she was born,
>write English worse than people with other nationalities?
.....
I don't normally pick on people for their English errors, particularly
someone who's learned it as a second language.  Since you've seen fit
to do that, be advised that it is grammAr, not grammEr!  The second
sentence above is (at least) stylistically dubious.  The third is
plainly ungrammatical.  Let's lighten up a bit and criticize CONTENT
of posts -- there is a lot of meat there.

   --- Gary Wiltshire

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Dennis Weldy]

Have y'tried using the string class? Y'dont have to use strdup any longer.
:-)
Give it a shot. :-)
    #include <string>
    #include <ostream>

    main()
    {
        std::string Hello, World, HelloWorld ;
        std::string HW2 ;
        Hello = "Hello" ;
        World = "World" ;
        HelloWorld = Hello + " " + World + "!" ;

        cout << HelloWorld << endl ;
        HW2 = HelloWorld ;
        HelloWorld = "I like the string class" ;

        cout << HW2 << endl ;
        cout << HelloWorld << endl ;
    }

Dennis

Jean-Sebastien Payette wrote in message
<64tnjp$o0k$1@weber.videotron.net>...
>
>Dennis Weldy wrote in message ...
>>It is? Care to offer a bit of proof there?
>>Standard Pascal was, last I looked woefully lacking in file handling.
>>Strings were packed arrays of chars (much like C).
>>
>>Now, perhaps y'mean Object Pascal, from Borland? Yes, that would be better
>>at handling objects "better" than C, since C doesn't directly support the
>OO
>>paradigm. Of course, if y'try to compare it to C++....then I would
disagree
>>(and yes, I do know Object Pascal (BP 7.0)).
>>
>>Dennis
>>
>
>
>Ok sorry I was talking about C++, I never really code in pure C.
>I must agree that I was a little overhelm stating that object pascal was
>better than C ( oups! C++) but not string manipulation. I hate string
>manipulation in C++. Damn strdup() that make everything fall appart...
>and file manipulation is file manipulation, you can't really tell appart
any
>of the two languages because the functions are nearly the same in both.And
>btw, in pascal, you can have pointer to string (like in C) but they are
more
>easy to handle!
>
>

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Davide Bionda]

>hardly, I can prove rather easily that I can speak my language better
>than you.

Right, that's the point: YOUR language, not english.

Take care
Davide

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mark Wilden]

tmt@panix.com wrote:
> 
> Pascal is the prefered language for developers of games.

As a professional games programmer (currently with Sierra/Dynamix), I
can tell you that statement is untrue.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Jean-Sebastien Payette]

>I do not know C and do not intend to learn it.  I do know TP Dos, TP
>Win, QuickBasic, VB3, VB4, and Visual Dialogscript.  So if you want a


Whoa you know pascal, pascal, basic, basic and basic that's cool!

>Damn near any idiot can program.  But it takes a Genius to become
>successful at it.

Yes and it don't take a genius to know 2 languages in different version!

Oh yea btw I know TP4, TP5, TP6, TP7, C++, Djgpp, and I even done some
programming in pascal on my C64
BUT I DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT'S ONLY 2 LANGUAGES! not 8 ...

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Kaz Kylheku]

In article <64suum$5oo$1@weber.videotron.net>,
Jean-Sebastien Payette <jeanspayette@videotron.ca> wrote:
>
>John Rickard wrote in message <64sql2$k0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>...
>>why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>>and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
>
>
>I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
>Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings and file
>manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know both
>language (unlike you!!)

Standard Pascal is better at file handling than standard C? Hmm...
In what way, pray tell? 

Have the I/O facilities of _standard_ Pascal improved since Brian Kernighan
wrote that paper entitled ``Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming
Language?'' It's not sufficient for some particular _implementation_ of Pascal
to provide better I/O facilities, if they are not part of the generally
accepted language definition.

As far as strings go, Pascal's representation of strings as character arrays is
not all too different from the way it's done in C. I just remember it as
being less flexible. The last time I used Pascal, it was next to impossible
to handle dynamic strings.

If you are going to use a Pascal-like language, at least go to Modula 2 (or
even 3).

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Kaz Kylheku]

In article <64tnjp$o0k$1@weber.videotron.net>,
Jean-Sebastien Payette <jeanspayette@videotron.ca> wrote:
>
>Dennis Weldy wrote in message ...
>>It is? Care to offer a bit of proof there?
>>Standard Pascal was, last I looked woefully lacking in file handling.
>>Strings were packed arrays of chars (much like C).
>>
>>Now, perhaps y'mean Object Pascal, from Borland? Yes, that would be better
>>at handling objects "better" than C, since C doesn't directly support the
>OO
>>paradigm. Of course, if y'try to compare it to C++....then I would disagree
>>(and yes, I do know Object Pascal (BP 7.0)).
>>
>>Dennis
>>
>
>
>Ok sorry I was talking about C++, I never really code in pure C.
>I must agree that I was a little overhelm stating that object pascal was
>better than C ( oups! C++) but not string manipulation. I hate string
>manipulation in C++. Damn strdup() that make everything fall appart...

You are confusing implementations and languages again. The strdup() function
is not part of C. It's an extension that is found in some implementations.
I believe it has descended from the System V Interface Definition.

Nevertheless, it is sometimes useful in a C program to execute an operation
that has the semantics of strdup. What do you find wrong with it? You have a
string that is in some static or automatic buffer. This string must be
maintained for a duration that is longer than the lifetime of the buffer, or
because that buffer will be reused for subsequent I/O operations. You have
little choice but to copy the string to dynamically allocated storage.

I have no clue what you are complaining about. Such an operation might be
required in _any_ language which does not hide storage management details
from the programmer. 

You talk as if you lack programming experience.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mike Smith]

John Rickard <saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> wrote in article
<64sql2$k0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>...
> why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
> and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
> -- 
> --

Re-read your last post.  Hopefully, the reason will become obvious.

--Mike Smith

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mike Smith]

Ingemar Ragnemalm <ingemar@lysator.liu.se> wrote in article
<347067B8.46@lysator.liu.se>...
> Do you realize that Java is more related to Object Pascal
> than to C and even C++? You don't? Yes, I thought you wouldn't.
> Think about it.
> 

Of course we do.  That's why it sucks so bad.  ;-)  ;-)  ;-)  <--I'm
putting a bunch here so you can see I'm *really* joking.

--Mike Smith

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Matt Corey]

Dr E. Buxbaum wrote:

> Ingemar Ragnemalm wrote:
>
> > Couldn't you at least flame Pascal and ADA in favor of
> > something *interesting*, like Forth, Scheme or PDP-11
> > assembler? Joining the majority to flame the minority,
> > sheesh. Boring.
>
> I always thought C WAS the PDP-11 macro assembler!

  C:  The power and functionality of assembly language with the
usability and readability of assembly language.  ;-)

I think Tcl is the only language that anyone will ever need!  I haven't
been able to do anything in any other language, so Tcl is the only real
language.  (Never mind the fact the the Tcl library is written in C.)

Also, it's Ada, not ADA.  That's the people who approve your
toothbrushes.  :-)

A programming language is a tool, just like a hammer.  A particular
language is suitable for certain problems and domains.  I have yet to
see anyone write an OS in Tcl or Awk.  Does this make them 'worthless'
languages?  C doesn't support Objects, C++ doesn't have multithreading
defined in the language, Ada is perfect - I mean Ada doesn't support the
concept of interfaces a la Java,  Java doesn't support multiple
inheritance directly,  and Object Pascal (Delphi) is not portable in any
way, shape, or form (pun intended).  I use all of these languages
extensively and they are all very good languages.  If I had to choose
one language to use exclusively, I would quit and go work on my '66
Skylark.  The analysis and design of a system and the skill of the
programmer is implementing this has more to do with software quality
than the language chosen.

Viva la difference.   (Frenglish)

Does anyone have a Mandarin chinese keyboard that I can borrow?

Matt

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[J. W. Rider]

On Wed, 19 Nov 97 17:38:09 GMT, chuck@but_i_dont_like_spam.org (Chuck
Adams) wrote:

>Incorrect, standard pascal strings have their length encoded in them and are a 
>primitive type.  delphi allows both pascal strings and null-terminated c 
>strings (not always interchangeable).

*Standard* pascal strings are constants only.

Borland's Turbo Pascal strings used the prefix length byte.

Delphi (v3) handles the TP-style string, the null-terminated c-style
string, but uses a reference model version of a "long" string as its
default.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John Rickard]

dont get on my case for throwing stones. i didnt even start this
shit.
i am getting flamed to death because i missed the fucking - key.
Geez. if it is a crime then you all should be executed also.
Oh what I am not allowed to estimate my age when i began speaking
understandable words?
GET OFF MY BACK!
I dont critisize any of you for fucking up words in a NG post!
like i said in another message, I don't have shit to prove to you!
this is a newsgroup not a english class!
this is a newsgroup not a resume!
GROW UP AND STOP BITCHING AT ME FOR A SIMPLE TYPO.
-- 
--
Remove "spam" from my
email address to send me REAL email.
--

Mike Smith <kld_msmith@earthlink.nospam.net> wrote in article
<01bcf51e$35e2a0c0$0200000a@kld_mcs>...
: John Rickard <saskan@spam.worldnet.spam.att.spam.net.spam> wrote in
article
: <64ursa$jpu@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>...
: > When I posted that message my grammar was proper.
: > -- 
: > --
: > Remove "spam" from my
: > email address to send me REAL email.
: > --
: 
: Here's the message in question:
: 
: >why should I waste my time Re learning a language
: >I have understood and spoke since around 1-3 years 
: >of age?
: 
: Let's see.  "Why" should be capitalized.  "RE" is not a word.  "RE
: learning" is also not a word.  "Re-learning", maybe?  "I have
understood
: and spoke since"... maybe you meant "have understood and spoken
since"? 
: "Around 1-3 years" is redundant - and, in your case, maybe a little
: optimistic?
: 
: Normally I don't stoop to the level of nitpicking grammar and/or
syntax in
: Usenet posts, but if you're going to throw stones, you should move
out of
: that glass house first.
: 
: --Mike Smith
: 
: --Mike Smith
: 
: 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John Rickard]

did someone forget that just about every inch of the internet you are
on now is in english.
NOTE: i did not say all. i said just about every inch.
-- 
--
Remove "spam" from my
email address to send me REAL email.
--

Mike Smith <kld_msmith@earthlink.nospam.net> wrote in article
<01bcf51b$abcea520$0200000a@kld_mcs>...
: JCore <jcorez@juno.com> wrote in article
: <34710873.4313003@news.linkonline.net>...
: > On 17 Nov 1997 23:57:47 GMT, "John Rickard"
: > <saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> wrote:
: > 
: > >there are not more chinese speakers than english.
: > >if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
: > >widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want
it
: > >that way ;)
: > 
: > Um, actually Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the
world.
: > Sorry to have to be the American to break it to you.  Oh yeh, and
I
: > agree with the original article too.
: 
: Define "widely".  There certainly are an awful lot of
Chinese-speakers in
: the world.  But English is spoken in countries on every continent
of the
: globe (except South America? - I mean national tongue, not that one
or more
: people speak it).  It seems certain that, among people who speak at
least
: two languages, more people speak English as a second language than
Chinese.
:  English is the language of choice for international organizations
and for
: other international standards, e.g. English is the chosen language
for
: pilots, air traffic controllers, etc.  One hears English-language
songs on
: European radio all the time, but one almost never hears
: non-English-language songs on American radio (I can't speak for
: Commonwealth nations).  I don't know about the exact numbers of
English vs.
: Chinese speakers (don't forget India - not exactly a small
country), but
: certainly English is more "widely" spoken than Chinese.
: 
: Is that because "we" (yes I'm American as if that weren't obvious)
want it
: that way?  Maybe.  But I think the UK deserves at least some of the
: credit/blame.  ;-)
: 
: --Mike Smith
: 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[system]

"Mike Smith" <kld_msmith@earthlink.nospam.net> writes:
>JCore <jcorez@juno.com> wrote in article
><34710873.4313003@news.linkonline.net>...
>> On 17 Nov 1997 23:57:47 GMT, "John Rickard"
>> <saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> wrote:
>> 
>> >there are not more chinese speakers than english.
>> >if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
>> >widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want it
>> >that way ;)
>> 
>> Um, actually Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world.
>> Sorry to have to be the American to break it to you.  Oh yeh, and I
>> agree with the original article too.
>
>Define "widely".  There certainly are an awful lot of Chinese-speakers in
>the world.  But English is spoken in countries on every continent of the
>globe (except South America? - I mean national tongue, not that one or more
>people speak it).  

>One hears English-language songs on
>European radio all the time, but one almost never hears
>non-English-language songs on American radio (I can't speak for
>Commonwealth nations).  

I think that speaks more to our insularity than anything else.

>I don't know about the exact numbers of English vs.
>Chinese speakers (don't forget India - not exactly a small country), 

My info is that 4% of Indians speak and read English.  How many
speak but don't read it?  dunno.

>Is that because "we" (yes I'm American as if that weren't obvious) want it
>that way?  Maybe.  

I think it is pretty clearly yes.  We can debate whether this is
"ugly" and/or "understandable" some other time.

>But I think the UK deserves at least some of the credit/blame.  ;-)

The U.K. mostly takes credit for making it one of the languages of choice
in its former colonies.

Morphis@physics.niu.edu
Real Women change tires			abuse@uu.net postmaster@uu.net
Real Men change diapers                 security@uu.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[system]

kaz@helios.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
>Mark Wilden  <Mark@mWilden.com> wrote:
>>John Rickard wrote:
 
>>> why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>>> and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?

>>Three reasons:

>>1) "RE learning" requires a hyphen.

>Incidentally, re-learning would actually be written relearning.

Maybe.  John wanted to emphasize "RE", so I think he should have
typed "RE-learning".  No hyphen would have been ok, clearly a space
is incorrect.

>>2) "spoke" should be "spoken."

>Touche. That could be a typo.

Probably, but since this was a response to a criticism based on the typos
made by John you would think he would be a bit more carefull.
(The criticism included a smilie and I do think was made in good humor,
something John seems to lack)

Robert

Morphis@physics.niu.edu
Real Women change tires			abuse@uu.net postmaster@uu.net
Real Men change diapers                 security@uu.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Michael Rubenstein]

On 19 Nov 1997 18:48:10 GMT, "Mike Smith"
<kld_msmith@earthlink.nospam.net> wrote:

>JCore <jcorez@juno.com> wrote in article
><34710873.4313003@news.linkonline.net>...
>> On 17 Nov 1997 23:57:47 GMT, "John Rickard"
>> <saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> wrote:
>> 
>> >there are not more chinese speakers than english.
>> >if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
>> >widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want it
>> >that way ;)
>> 
>> Um, actually Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world.
>> Sorry to have to be the American to break it to you.  Oh yeh, and I
>> agree with the original article too.
>
>Define "widely".  There certainly are an awful lot of Chinese-speakers in
>the world.  But English is spoken in countries on every continent of the
>globe (except South America? - I mean national tongue, not that one or more
>people speak it).  It seems certain that, among people who speak at least
>two languages, more people speak English as a second language than Chinese.
> English is the language of choice for international organizations and for
>other international standards, e.g. English is the chosen language for
>pilots, air traffic controllers, etc.  One hears English-language songs on
>European radio all the time, but one almost never hears
>non-English-language songs on American radio (I can't speak for
>Commonwealth nations).  I don't know about the exact numbers of English vs.
>Chinese speakers (don't forget India - not exactly a small country), but
>certainly English is more "widely" spoken than Chinese.
>
>Is that because "we" (yes I'm American as if that weren't obvious) want it
>that way?  Maybe.  But I think the UK deserves at least some of the
>credit/blame.  ;-)

According to the World Almanac there are almost twice as many speakers
of Mandarin (999 million) as of English (487 million).

Michael M Rubenstein

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Justin Ng]

In-Reply-To: <64vs87$1ms@corn.cso.niu.edu> 


On 19 Nov 1997 system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:

> Date: 19 NOV 1997 23:20:39 GMT 
> From: system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
> Newgroups: comp.lang.ada, comp.lang.c, comp.lang.c++,
>     comp.lang.java.advocacy, comp.lang.pascal.ansi-iso,
>     comp.lang.pascal.misc
> Subject: Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!! 
> 
> "John Rickard" wrote:
> >Davide Bionda <bionda@erdw.ethz.ch> wrote:
> >>"John Rickard" wrote:
> 
> >why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
> >and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?

You sound as if you're left with no choice? Well....bear in mind,
the world is always changing, it's either you change the environment to
suit your needs or you change your needs to suit the environment. Well,
of course, you alway have a choice, no one is forcing you, you can
remain as it is as well.

> >>>there are not more chinese speakers than english.
> >>>if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
> >>>widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want
> >>>it that way ;)

I know both chinese and english, I can communicate using both language, 
(in a versatile way?), so I can have more friends than you do huh?

> ================================================================================
> "John Rickard" <saskan@spam.worldnet.spam.att.spam.net.spam>
> >J-S Payette wrote:
> 
> >>I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
> >^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^And you should so you can learn proper
> >vocabulary skills.
> 
> Given the construction of the above sentence/phrase I wouldn't
> be so quick to be critical of others' language abilities.
> At least you're capitalizing.

He who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know.

> >>Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings and file
> >>manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know both
> >>language (unlike you!!)
> 
> >And how do you know what languages I know? 
> 
> I don't know about languages, but given the amount of formatting I
> had to do to make this message legible I would say you don't know
> much about newsreaders.
> 
> >So if you want a fight about who knows more we can skip the whole 
> >programming aspect and take this a intelectual level and have a 
> >battle of the wits.  And I can promise you I will win.

He who is ruled by men lives in sorrow, he who rules men lives in confusion.
I chose not to be in either position instead. 

No one is a sure winner. Who knows, there are so many people around the
whole world, it's just that you never get a chance to meet them, not that
they don't exist in this world. 

You are just asking for a loser that's all, I believe there will be people
who are kind enough to entertain your needs.

> >-
> >Damn near any idiot can program.  But it takes a Genius to become
> >successful at it.
> >-
> >hardly, I can prove rather easily that I can speak my language better
> >than you. I mean I have only been speaking it since I have been able
> >to speak.
> 
> Please go find a style book and look up continuity and making transitions.
> 
> >As for talking better than me... Try reading you message and tell me
> >you don't talk like a 12 year old.
> 
> Try rereading your messages and understand that:
> 1) you can't take a joke,
> 2) your intuitive grammer sucks
> 3) some people might think your emotional age matches Jean's skills
> 	at his 2nd written/spoken language.

Hehe...just add to the list above,
  4) you need someone to entertain you simply by losing to you
  5) you just can't afford to lose
  6) you know you don't deserve respect from others

--
Justin Ng

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Michael Rubenstein]

On Wed, 19 Nov 1997 16:04:15 -0800, Mark Wilden <Mark@mWilden.com>
wrote:

>Michael Rubenstein wrote:
>> 
>> According to the World Almanac there are almost twice as many speakers
>> of Mandarin (999 million) as of English (487 million).
>
>What year was that? Those figures seem suspect. They mean that over 4.5
>billion people speak neither language.

It's from the 1997 Almanac (from Microsoft Bookshelf) and the figures
are for mid 1996.

There are also 457 million speakers of Hindi and 401 million speakers
of Spanish.

These figures include non-native speaker.

Also, of course, I meant "over", not "almost."

Michael M Rubenstein

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Peter Seebach]

In article <3475921d.208410468@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
Michael Rubenstein <miker3@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Nov 1997 16:04:15 -0800, Mark Wilden <Mark@mWilden.com>
>>> According to the World Almanac there are almost twice as many speakers
>>> of Mandarin (999 million) as of English (487 million).

>It's from the 1997 Almanac (from Microsoft Bookshelf) and the figures
>are for mid 1996.

>These figures include non-native speaker.

I have a hard time believing this one.  Just about all of the U.S.,
most of Canada, all of the U.K., a third of Europe, and a large portion
of Asia, speak English, at least as a second language.

(The 'third of Europe' is from a recent article in The Economist.)

Furthermore, I have a very hard time buying the number given for Mandarin;
the Chinese I met living at a university *mostly* spoke Mandarin, but I'd
say no more than half of the people we met who weren't studens or teachers
did...

Also, you have to look at the rate of growth; English has become a very
popular technical and trade language, and (at least in the EU), younger
people are much more likely to have a second language, and more than
half of them learn English.

English has a wide variety of consonant clusters, and happily adopts
words from nearly any other language; this has been a great strength
for it.

If this gets any more off topic, I shall expect to be clobbered by the
Narn Bat Squad.

-s
-- 
seebs@plethora.net -- I am not speaking for my employer.  Copyright '97
All rights reserved.  This was not sent by my cat.  C and Unix wizard -
send mail for help, or send money for a consultation.  Visit my new ISP
<URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!  Plethora . Net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Boyd Roberts]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 554 bytes --]


In article <3473723c.200248081@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, miker3@ix.netcom.com (Michael Rubenstein) writes:
>According to the World Almanac there are almost twice as many speakers
>of Mandarin (999 million) as of English (487 million).
>

By the shear number of speakers, the Mandarin speakers are predominant.

However, the universally used language is, and will be, some varient of English.

-- 
Boyd Roberts <boyd@france3.fr>			UTM N 31 447109 5411310

En fin, bon, bref, si tu veux, point � la ligne, voil� quoi -- Jacques

SPAT: fred@ultramax.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Joseph Santaniello]

In article <650e6p$ahv$1@darla.visi.com>, seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach)
wrote:

>>>> of Mandarin (999 million) as of English (487 million).
>
>>It's from the 1997 Almanac (from Microsoft Bookshelf) and the figures
>>are for mid 1996.
>
>>These figures include non-native speaker.
>
>I have a hard time believing this one.  Just about all of the U.S.,
>most of Canada, all of the U.K., a third of Europe, and a large portion
>of Asia, speak English, at least as a second language.

487 sounds about right if you figure the poulations for the areas you
mention are "about" as follows: US 270M, Canada 29M, UK 58M, 1/3 Europe
150M, and half of Japan (optimistic) 70M, Australia 15M (?). Plus everybody
else in Asia who maybe speaks English still falls way below 999M for
Mandarin.

Joe 

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Boyd Roberts]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 565 bytes --]


In article <650e6p$ahv$1@darla.visi.com>, seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) writes:
>
>English has a wide variety of consonant clusters, and happily adopts
>words from nearly any other language; this has been a great strength
>for it.
>

That is hardly an argument.  If you try hard enough you can do it
in any language.  Take French:

   CD   == c�d�
   mail == m�l

Yes, they are serious.

-- 
Boyd Roberts <boyd@france3.fr>			UTM N 31 447109 5411310

En fin, bon, bref, si tu veux, point � la ligne, voil� quoi -- Jacques

SPAT: fred@ultramax.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Christer Gustavsson]

"John Rickard" <saskan@spam.worldnet.spam.att.spam.net.spam> writes:
> did someone forget that just about every inch of the internet you are
> on now is in english.
> NOTE: i did not say all. i said just about every inch.

Ok, so on some of the centimeters there are other languages, right?
:-)

/Christer

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mike Smith]

Kaz Kylheku <kaz@helios.crest.nt.com> wrote in article
<650kf8$smt$1@helios.crest.nt.com>...
> >> in Tcl or Awk.  
> >
> >Shouldn't that be AWK, since it's named after the authors?
> 
> Touche! :) And TCL is also an acronym, is in not? Tool Command Language
or some
> such thing.

They're both acronyms, but I've seen them widely (couldn't help digging up
that word again ;-) used without capitalization.  Sort of like scuba, which
is an acronym, but is very often not capitalized.

--Mike Smith

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mike Smith]

Chieh Cheng <chiehcheng@iname.com> wrote in article
<3472f84b.408504898@serve.installshield.com>...
> On Wed, 19 Nov 1997 15:01:11 GMT, 70523.3077@compuserve.com (Gary A.
> 
> You are absolutely right. I am not very good with English, but I was
> speaking for other people who learned their second language must
> better than I did. Otherwise, I would have compared him to myself. And
> again, you're right. I'll chill out a bit.
> 

This seems like pretty good English to me!  (One point off misspelling
"much", though.  ;-)

--Mike Smith

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96]

Matt Corey <mcorey@ITSNET.COM> writes:
>The Java v. Ada v. C v. C++ v. Pascal v. Tcl v. Forth v. Scheme v. Eiffel v.
>Sather v. Awk v. Perl v. Basic v. B v. CLOS  ( breath ) v. Flavors v. RPG v.
>COBOL v. Fortran v. Clipper v. Modulax v. ObjectiveC v. PL/1 v. PLM v.
>Assembler v. Rexx v. Smalltalk v. Python language war has now added English.
>:-)
>
    This thread has certainly degenerated quite a bit to the point
    where it has become hopelessly silly. Maybe we should toss in yet
    one more programming language to debate? How about Befunge - the
    worlds first two dimensional programming language:

        http://www.cats-eye.com/cet/soft/lang/befunge/

    I was rather impressed by it ;-)

    MDC

Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer     Voice:     561.796.8997
Pratt & Whitney GESP, M/S 731-96, P.O.B. 109600  Fax:       561.796.4669
West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600                  Internet:  CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
===============================================================================
    "Some people say a front-engine car handles best. Some people say
    a rear-engine car handles best. I say a rented car handles best."
        --  P. J. O'Rourke
===============================================================================

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John R. Reagan]

In article <3473407e.17757163@lhc.nlm.nih.gov>, jw_rider@usa.net (J. W. Rider) writes...
>*Standard* pascal strings are constants only.
> 
>Borland's Turbo Pascal strings used the prefix length byte.

Becareful of what you speak...

The Extended Pascal standard from 1989 added a variable-length STRING type
in addition to the traditional PACKED ARRAY OF CHAR fixed-string type.

Also note that the standard doesn't provide an implementation.  A compiler
is free to choose whatever implementation to provide the semantic behavior.
It could choose a prefix length byte, a prefix length word, a trailing
null, a quija board, etc.


--
John Reagan
DEC Pascal Project Leader
Application Compilers and Environments
Digital Equipment Corporation
reagan@hiyall.enet.dec.com
Disclaimer:  The opinions and statements expressed by me are not
             necessarily those of Digital Equipment Corporation.
--

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Craig Franck]

"Mike Smith" <kld_msmith@earthlink.nospam.net> wrote:
>system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote in article
><64vpua$ni7@corn.cso.niu.edu>...
>> >One hears English-language songs on
>> >European radio all the time, but one almost never hears
>> >non-English-language songs on American radio (I can't speak for
>> >Commonwealth nations).  
>> 
>> I think that speaks more to our insularity than anything else.
>
>Maybe.  For myself, I can say I don't like European music very much because
>of the musical content, not the language.  

Looking at the international charts in Billboard, I can recognize 8
out of the top 10 songs in some countries. September 12 Top 10 in
Sweden is topped by "Barbie Slut Girl" and then Puff Daddy, Coolio,
the "Men in Black" song, then finally two artists that seem local,
then back to that Mr. Biggy fellow, Mariah Carrey, Baby Face & Stevie
Wonder, and The Verve (apparently not the same as The Verve Pipe,
because the label is different). Oasis, Aqua, John Fogerty (I guess
swamp funk if popular there), Spice Girls, No Doubt, and Prodigy all
have Top 10 albums in Sweden.

>Europeans (except the British,
>who invented it, and a couple of flukes from Germany, like the Scorpions)
>don't know how to ROCK!  I mean, what was the last really good Swiss (or
>Czech, or Danish, etc.) grunge band?  ;-)

There will always be ABBA (sold more records than the Beatles, you
know). :-) wowowowoWaterloo...

-- 
Craig
clfranck@worldnet.att.net
Manchester, NH
I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several
days attack me at once. -- Ashleigh Brilliant

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[John Rickard]

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mark Wilden]

Dan wrote:
> 
> Most people in South Africa, India, and perhaps Singapore do not speak
> much or any English.

I don't know about Singapore, but I'm skeptical about the other two. In
fact, I was under the impression that English is the official language
of India, due to the number of indigenous dialects.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[system]

Mark Wilden <Mark@mWilden.com> writes:
>Joseph Santaniello wrote:
 
>> 487 sounds about right if you figure the poulations for the areas you
>> mention are "about" as follows: US 270M, Canada 29M, UK 58M, 1/3 Europe
>> 150M, and half of Japan (optimistic) 70M, Australia 15M (?). Plus everybody
>> else in Asia who maybe speaks English still falls way below 999M for
>> Mandarin.

>Although you left out Africa, I don't really have a problem with the
>fact that more people speak Mandarin than English. What I can't fathom
>is that the vast majority of the world (over 4.5 billion people) speak
>_neither_.

Don't tell me you swallowed that bilge about the global village?!? ;-)

Why don't most Americans (will somebody please come up with an accurate
and easy to use word denoting citizens of the U.S.A.) learn more than
one language?  They don't need too!

Most Africans and South Americans and a very large chunk of Asians
have no use for either Mandarin or English.  They speak their
native language plus one other tribal language and/or perhaps the
national language if it differs from their native tongue.

Peace,
Robert
Morphis@physics.niu.edu
Real Women change tires			abuse@uu.net postmaster@uu.net
Real Men change diapers                 security@uu.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Wei Jing Guo]

when we talk about Chinese language, we include Mandarin, Cantonese,
Fujianese, and some other hundred dialects...

there are defintely more people who speak Chinese, but it is also a fact
that English is spoken in more countries...i don't why this argument
should be posted in newsgroups about computer languages...  ;)

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Larry Elmore]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 954 bytes --]


Boyd Roberts wrote in message <651fpg$ngu$2@route1.mdrf.france3.fr>...
>In article <650e6p$ahv$1@darla.visi.com>, seebs@plethora.net (Peter
Seebach) writes:
>>
>>English has a wide variety of consonant clusters, and happily adopts
>>words from nearly any other language; this has been a great strength
>>for it.
>>
>That is hardly an argument.  If you try hard enough you can do it
>in any language.  Take French:
>
>   CD   == c�d�
>   mail == m�l


The key words being "If you try hard enough..." That's a _long_ ways from
happily adopting anything that comes along that makes sense! Isn't it France
that's fighting a losing campaign to preserve the "purity" of the French
language from the "pollution" of foreign words and phrases? Kind of ironic
considering French is essentially a bastardization of Latin with some other
stuff mixed in...

>Yes, they are serious.

That's what makes it all the more comical to the rest of us...

Larry

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Boyd Roberts]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 661 bytes --]


In article <650je4$s5p$1@helios.crest.nt.com>, kaz@helios.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
>In article <64vpcn$ni7@corn.cso.niu.edu>,
> <system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu> wrote:
>>kaz@helios.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
>>>Touche. That could be a typo.
>>
>>Probably, but since this was a response to a criticism based on the typos
>>made by John you would think he would be a bit more carefull.
>
>Carefull? :) Is that a blunder or an instance of irony?

Blunder.  It's written touch�.

-- 
Boyd Roberts <boyd@france3.fr>			UTM N 31 447109 5411310

En fin, bon, bref, si tu veux, point � la ligne, voil� quoi -- Jacques

SPAT: fred@ultramax.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Dennis Weldy]

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote in message <3474B3E4.67FA@gsg.eds.com>...
>Kaz Kylheku wrote:
>
>> >constructs are more arcane that assembler language.
>>
>> Which ones?
>
>Well, I was thinking of the use of * both for defining pointers and for
>dereferencing them.

I've always thought htat made sense: the declaraction matches use.
Or do you object to using [] for the declaration of arrays, and for indexing
into the array as well? ;-)

Dennis

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[David Weller]

In article <01bcf5c2$c4dfe7c0$0200000a@kld_mcs>,
Mike Smith <kld_msmith@earthlink.nospam.net> wrote:
>Kaz Kylheku <kaz@helios.crest.nt.com> wrote in article
><650kf8$smt$1@helios.crest.nt.com>...
>> 
>or some
>> such thing.
>
>They're both acronyms, but I've seen them widely (couldn't help digging up
>that word again ;-) used without capitalization.  Sort of like scuba, which
>is an acronym, but is very often not capitalized.
>
>--Mike Smith



And the opposite of Ada, which should never be written in all caps,
but often is by those that don't understand it's a proper name, not an
acronym (at least whilst speaking of programming languages).
-- 
RIVA Technologies: Eschewing Obfuscation through Manipulexity and Whipitupitude
Visual Applications and Simulation.  Also specializing in migrating projects 
from Ada83 (Rational/Verdix/SunAda) to Ada95 (GNAT-family).

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Jerry Sams]

JCore wrote in message <34710873.4313003@news.linkonline.net>...
>On 17 Nov 1997 23:57:47 GMT, "John Rickard"
><saskan@worldnet.att.net.DONTSPAMME> wrote:
>
>>there are not more chinese speakers than english.
>>if you have not relized it but the english language it the most
>>widely used language as a standard. why? cause us americans want it
>>that way ;)
>
>Um, actually Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world.

%^$&&*)&^%**(^&**@  (Chinese for "say whhaaaaaaatt?)

Jerry

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Jerry Sams]

Jean-Sebastien Payette wrote in message
<64suum$5oo$1@weber.videotron.net>...
>
>John Rickard wrote in message <64sql2$k0@mtinsc04.worldnet.att.net>...
>>why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
>>and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
>
>
>I've never learn english and I talk better than you.
>Now about Pascal and C let me tell you that in some case (strings and file
>manipulation, most object handling) Pascal is way better and I know both
>language (unlike you!!)


That's "I've never 'learned' english."  It's called the past tense *perfect*
when you spell it right; otherwise just the past tense.

Jerry

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Dennis Weldy]

Well, I didn't see it. Of course, the whole thread has gotten prety darned
silly.
I mean, the original post was a JOKE. :-)

<shrug>
Dennis

John Rickard wrote in message <64vdko$88b@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>...
>They assumed I was american BECAUSE I mentioned the fact I was in I
>beleive the 2nd post I made in my defense.
>--
>--
>Remove "spam" from my
>email address to send me REAL email.
>--
>
>Dennis Weldy <nojunkmail@ever.com> wrote in article
><32nusbR98GA.70@news2.ingr.com>...
>: Ok, jumping on the content of Chieh's post, if you'll note he
>merely ASSUMES
>: the idividual is American, when there are penty of other countries
>where the
>: original poster couldve learned English from 1-3 years of age.
>England,
>: Ireland, Canada, Australia,.... all sorts of places :)
>:
>: Dennis
>: Gary A. Wiltshire <70523.3077@compuserve.com> wrote in message
>: <3472e573.3440168@news.albany.net>...
>: >chiehcheng@iname.com (Chieh Cheng) wrote:
>: >.....
>: >>For one thing, your grammer sucks. And learn to capitalize. Isn't
>: >>ironic when an American who learned English since he/she was
>born,
>: >>write English worse than people with other nationalities?
>: >.....
>: >I don't normally pick on people for their English errors,
>particularly
>: >someone who's learned it as a second language.  Since you've seen
>fit
>: >to do that, be advised that it is grammAr, not grammEr!  The
>second
>: >sentence above is (at least) stylistically dubious.  The third is
>: >plainly ungrammatical.  Let's lighten up a bit and criticize
>CONTENT
>: >of posts -- there is a lot of meat there.
>: >
>: >   --- Gary Wiltshire
>:
>:
>:

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Ncp268]

In article <01bcf51b$abcea520$0200000a@kld_mcs>, "Mike Smith"
<kld_msmith@earthlink.nospam.net> writes:

>Is that because "we" (yes I'm American as if that weren't obvious) want it
>that way?  Maybe.  But I think the UK deserves at least some of the
>credit/blame.  ;-)

We (the UK) have become a third rate global power. Please dont kick us when we
are down.

**************************************************************************
********************
Remember Nina Mackay! 
How many more???
**************************************************************************
*********************

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]

Dennis Weldy wrote:

> >Well, I was thinking of the use of * both for defining pointers and for
> >dereferencing them.
> 
> I've always thought htat made sense: the declaraction matches use.

N, they don't; the order is different.

> Or do you object to using [] for the declaration of arrays, and for indexing
> into the array as well? ;-)

No, because there it's consistent.


-- 

                        Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
                        Senior Software SE

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Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

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"Dennis Weldy" <nojunkmail@ever.com> writes:

>It is? Care to offer a bit of proof there?
>Standard Pascal was, last I looked woefully lacking in file handling.
>Strings were packed arrays of chars (much like C).

Then you didn't look at the current standard, ISO 10206, also known as
ISO Pascal Extended.

A programmer who knows only one programming language
is like a would-be author who has only read one book.

-- 
John �neas Byron O'Keefe; 1921/02/04-1997/09/27; TLG,TLTA,BBTNOTL.
Richard A. O'Keefe; RMIT Comp.Sci; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

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"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <nospam@gsg.eds.com> writes:
>Oh, no! Please don't start a LISP versus Prolog debate!

Any competent Lisp programmer knows there is _something_ of value in Prolog,
and what's more, knows where to find a free Lisp embedding of Prolog for
when it's useful.  Any competent Prolog programmer knows there is much of
value in Lisp, and will look to it for ideas.  (Some of the ideas in my
Craft of Prolog were stolen from a paper by Boyer & Moore on how to map
Fortran to pure Lisp for their theorem prover.)

-- 
John �neas Byron O'Keefe; 1921/02/04-1997/09/27; TLG,TLTA,BBTNOTL.
Richard A. O'Keefe; RMIT Comp.Sci; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

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"Mike Smith" <kld_msmith@earthlink.nospam.net> writes:
>Define "widely".  There certainly are an awful lot of Chinese-speakers in
>the world.  But English is spoken in countries on every continent of the
>globe (except South America? - I mean national tongue, not that one or more
>people speak it).

Hm.  I've lived in four different Anglophone countries, and all of them
had plenty of Chinese people living there.  If you count countries where
the official language is the same, Spanish is probably more `widely'
spoken than English.  But why count countries rather than people?  And
how `official' does it have to be?  Election papers in this state are
distributed in about 10 languages.

>One hears English-language songs on
>European radio all the time, but one almost never hears
>non-English-language songs on American radio (I can't speak for
>Commonwealth nations).

Well, that says a lot about America, but very little about English.
My two favourite TV channels here are the ABC (Australian Broadcasting
Corporation) and the SBS (Special Broadcasting Services).  The SBS shows
a lot of foreign films on SBS (with subtitles, thankfully; the number of
non-English languages I understand _well_ could be counted on the fingers
of one knee).  The Deutsche-Welle news is regularly shown in several
languages (and very good it is too), and there are plenty of radio
broadcasts in other languages, notably including Chinese.

>but certainly English is more "widely" spoken than Chinese.

For _some_ definitions of "widely", yes.
And for _some_ definitions of "spoken".
For example, I read COBOL fairly well, but almost never write it.
Do I count as a "speaker" of COBOL or not?
Does a Panamanian who _can_ speak English but seldom has occasion to
count as an English speaker or not?
Do you count the speakers of Kriol in this country, or Tok Pijin in PNG,
as "English" speakers or not?

All of this matters in this thread only because of the programming analogues.
On the evidence I've seen, the number of _fluent_ C "speakers" is vanishingly
small.  And then there are all the retread C programmers calling themselves
C++ programmers, without using that fluently either.

Once upon a time, the majority of human beings used stone tools.
Where would we be now, if we let 'the majority' tell us what tools to use?
-- 
John �neas Byron O'Keefe; 1921/02/04-1997/09/27; TLG,TLTA,BBTNOTL.
Richard A. O'Keefe; RMIT Comp.Sci; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

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jw_rider@usa.net (J. W. Rider) writes:
>*Standard* pascal strings are constants only.

No.  Standard Pascal (ISO 10206) has a string data type,
without the pathetic limitation to 255 bytes of some antiques.

I wish people would find out what the current state of a language is
before they flame it.  It's not as though ISO Pascal Extended came out
yesterday.
-- 
John �neas Byron O'Keefe; 1921/02/04-1997/09/27; TLG,TLTA,BBTNOTL.
Richard A. O'Keefe; RMIT Comp.Sci; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Dennis Weldy]

int * p = NULL ;

the * comes before the variable name. I've defined an int pointer

 p = new int ;
 *p = 10 ;

the * comes before the variable name. I'm using the int pointed to by p.

Have I missed something?

Dennis

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote in message <3479FD07.2934@gsg.eds.com>...
>Dennis Weldy wrote:
>
>> >Well, I was thinking of the use of * both for defining pointers and for
>> >dereferencing them.
>>
>> I've always thought htat made sense: the declaraction matches use.
>
>N, they don't; the order is different.
>
>> Or do you object to using [] for the declaration of arrays, and for
indexing
>> into the array as well? ;-)
>
>No, because there it's consistent.
>
>
>--
>
>                        Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
>                        Senior Software SE
>
>The values in from and reply-to are for the benefit of spammers:
>reply to domain eds.com, user msustys1.smetz or to domain gsg.eds.com,
>user smetz. Do not reply to spamtrap@library.lspace.org

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Bob Bakh]

I personally prefer speaking Esperanto

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Martin M Dowie]

In article <34738872.783@gsg.eds.com>, "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz"
<nospam@gsg.eds.com> writes
>Yes, but see below.
> 
>> in Tcl or Awk.  
>
>Shouldn't that be AWK, since it's named after the authors?
>
I always thought it was AWKward ;-)

-- 
Martin M Dowie

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[chasjt]

Mike Smith wrote:
> 
<snip>
 One hears English-language songs on
> European radio all the time, but one almost never hears
> non-English-language songs on American radio (I can't speak for
> Commonwealth nations). 
<snip>

Hell, you can't even speak for Texas.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Peter Seebach]

In article <3479FD07.2934@gsg.eds.com>,
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <nospam@gsg.eds.com> wrote:
>N, they don't; the order is different.

Is not.  Well, not much.
	int *ip;
says, quite literally, that '*ip' is an integer.

If, later, you write '*ip', you are using integer type.

-s
-- 
seebs@plethora.net -- I am not speaking for my employer.  Copyright '97
All rights reserved.  This was not sent by my cat.  C and Unix wizard -
send mail for help, or send money for a consultation.  Visit my new ISP
<URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!  Plethora . Net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Kevin Edwards]

CERVANTES OJEDA, Jorge wrote:
> 
> Frans E. Boone wrote:
> >
> > system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
> >
> > > Why don't most Americans (will somebody please come up with an accurate
> > > and easy to use word denoting citizens of the U.S.A.) learn more than
> > > one language?  They don't need too!
> >
> > No one needs to learn a second language. It is a matter of courtesy toadapt
> > yourself to your surroundings.
> 
>   It is NOT only courtesy. When you learn a second language you get also an
> incredible ammount of CULTURE. :^)
> 

Consider a country like Luxembourg where the mother tongue
(Letzebergish) is spoken by about 250,000 people world wide.  Conducting
business (professional or private) almost certainly involves daily usage
of German, French and English.  Being multi-lingual there is certainly
not just courtesy , nor just culture, but real necessity.

As for communicating with a broad range of computer professionals, is it
really that much different?  The paradigms familiar to a COBOL
programmer are indeed different from those familiar to a C++
programmer.  Do I as a C++ programmer simply scowl and proclaim
technical superiority over my COBOL cohorts?  Considering that 70% of
the information age's data today is housed on IBM mainframes driven
primarily by COBOL programming, that is probably not a particularly
reasonable point of view, but I could choose to be closed minded about
it.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[macpar]

In article <65f14j$68$1@cronkite.sp.trw.com>,
  "Bob Bakh" <rbakh@mailsrv1.trw.com> wrote:
>
> I personally prefer speaking Esperanto

C^u vere?  Se vi preferas paroli esperante, kiel vi neniam efektive
faris
tion, anstatau nur prediki pri g^i al homoj, kiuj supozeble nek scipovas
g^in nek ec^ iomete interesig^as pri g^i?

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
      http://www.dejanews.com/     Search, Read, Post to Usenet

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Frans E. Boone]

system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:

> Why don't most Americans (will somebody please come up with an accurate
> and easy to use word denoting citizens of the U.S.A.) learn more than
> one language?  They don't need too!

No one needs to learn a second language. It is a matter of courtesy toadapt
yourself to your surroundings.
Most people however have trouble enough learning their own language.

--
Frans Boone

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[CERVANTES OJEDA, Jorge]

Frans E. Boone wrote:
> 
> system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
> 
> > Why don't most Americans (will somebody please come up with an accurate
> > and easy to use word denoting citizens of the U.S.A.) learn more than
> > one language?  They don't need too!
> 
> No one needs to learn a second language. It is a matter of courtesy toadapt
> yourself to your surroundings.

  It is NOT only courtesy. When you learn a second language you get also an
incredible ammount of CULTURE. :^)

  As for programming languages, The more languages you learn the more adaptable
you are for any change in your job. It is not only the knowledge of the 
languages itselves but the ability to understand other people's ideas and
improve them with your's.



> Most people however have trouble enough learning their own language.

Yes but you can allways learn in parallel YOUR language and another one.  8^l




  Jorge Cervantes (native Spanish speaker)
                  (learning French, German and, of course, English)

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[michael j tobler]

This thread is started to suck, let's move on ...
--
blue skies
michael j. tobler,  mailto:mjtobler@ix.netcom.com

system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:

> kaz@helios.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
> >Mark Wilden  <Mark@mWilden.com> wrote:
> >>John Rickard wrote:
>
> >>> why should I waste my time RE learning a language I have understood
> >>> and spoke since around 1-3 years of age?
>
> >>Three reasons:
>
> >>1) "RE learning" requires a hyphen.
>
> >Incidentally, re-learning would actually be written relearning.
>
> Maybe.  John wanted to emphasize "RE", so I think he should have
> typed "RE-learning".  No hyphen would have been ok, clearly a space
> is incorrect.
>
> >>2) "spoke" should be "spoken."
>
> >Touche. That could be a typo.
>
> Probably, but since this was a response to a criticism based on the typos
> made by John you would think he would be a bit more carefull.
> (The criticism included a smilie and I do think was made in good humor,
> something John seems to lack)
>
> Robert
>
> Morphis@physics.niu.edu
> Real Women change tires                 abuse@uu.net postmaster@uu.net
> Real Men change diapers                 security@uu.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[system]

"Frans E. Boone" <fboone@lucent.com> writes:
>system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:

>> Why don't most Americans (will somebody please come up with an accurate
>> and easy to use word denoting citizens of the U.S.A.) learn more than
>> one language?  They don't need too!

>No one needs to learn a second language.

When you live within one day's travel of 2-5 different countries where
they speak different languages it is considered useful to learn more
than one language.

>Most people however have trouble enough learning their own language.

Most (all?) college-prep students in Germany know 3 languages by the time 
they graduate from H.S..  Scandinavia is much the same.  I know little
about other countries but I would be surprized if it were greatly different.
Morphis@physics.niu.edu
Real Women change tires			abuse@uu.net postmaster@uu.net
Real Men change diapers                 security@uu.net

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Peter Seebach]

In article <65h9r4$knu@btmpjg.god.bel.alcatel.be>,
CERVANTES OJEDA, Jorge <"JCER@BTMV74"@btma74.se.bel.alcatel.be> wrote:
>  It is NOT only courtesy. When you learn a second language you get also an
>incredible ammount of CULTURE. :^)

Indeed!  Most natural languages have assumptions about the nature of
the universe embedded in them, and different ones can express different
concepts more easily.

>  As for programming languages, The more languages you learn the more adaptable
>you are for any change in your job. It is not only the knowledge of the 
>languages itselves but the ability to understand other people's ideas and
>improve them with your's.

Indeed!

I didn't really make good use of switch in C until I had gotten used
to using 'case' in sh.

-s
-- 
seebs@plethora.net -- I am not speaking for my employer.  Copyright '97
All rights reserved.  This was not sent by my cat.  C and Unix wizard -
send mail for help, or send money for a consultation.  Visit my new ISP
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Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Denny]

On 19 Nov 1997 10:44:35 -0800, kaz@helios.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku)
wrote:

>>2) "spoke" should be "spoken."
>
>Touche. That could be a typo. No native speaker of English would say ``I have
>understood and (I have) spoke'' unless he or she happened to blunder. It's
>awfully faulty parallelism. :) 
>
>- Kaz (an English speaker since the age of twelve).

No native speaker of English would make such a blunder?
Blunder implies unintentional.  Evidently you be forgetting about
Ebonics.  I be, you be, he be, we be, they be.  All correct and proper
in some circles.  ;-)

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Knochenhauer Bernd]

In article <65hm4g$3na@corn.cso.niu.edu>, system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
>
>When you live within one day's travel of 2-5 different countries where
>they speak different languages it is considered useful to learn more
>than one language.

Not only then. It widens your view of the world around you.

>Most (all?) college-prep students in Germany know 3 languages by the time 
>they graduate from H.S..  

In theory: yes. Personally however, I almost successfully managed to
forget all the french I had to learn in school :) 

--
Bernd Knochenhauer
Dr.Materna GmbH Dortmund
--

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Ingemar Ragnemalm]

My God, what a thread. I thought that title said it all:

Don't kick the minority. First, it takes a coward to do so,
and second, you may find yourself in a minority one day yourself.
English vs chinese is just an example, if you only care about
numbers.

Personally I love being in minorities. It is more fun, as long as
they don't get extinct. Wouldn't it be boring if all people in the
world spoke american english, dressed in jeans, ate hamburgers,
drank Coke, programmed in C++ on Intel PC's with Windows, sang
country&western, ... (etc, etc)

Cynthia & Bill wrote:

> Viva la difference!

That's the spirit!

> But I'll (personally) take C over Pascal any day.

You have made a choice, and you know it is your personal choice.
Too many don't choose, they just follow the majority without
thinking, and never care to learn more than one thing.

All I ask more is that you also respect that others choose
different. And perhaps recognize that the other choices actually
have some advantages over your choice.

And now LET'S STOP FUSSING ABOUT THIS! Cut down the number of
newsgroups in every follow-up please!

/Ingemar

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[D. Ross]

Matt Corey wrote:
> 
> The Java v. Ada v. C v. C++ v. Pascal v. Tcl v. Forth v. Scheme v. Eiffel v.
> Sather v. Awk v. Perl v. Basic v. B v. CLOS  ( breath ) v. Flavors v. RPG v.
> COBOL v. Fortran v. Clipper v. Modulax v. ObjectiveC v. PL/1 v. PLM v.
> Assembler v. Rexx v. Smalltalk v. Python language war has now added English.

We should get Mr. Stroustrup to re-do English... and call it English++. 

Just think how efficient we'd all be if everything we said was
polymorphic, overloaded, object-oriented and templatized!

Only problem, it would take 10 minutes to think of (compile) a sentence
before we said it.

And everyone's speech center (compiler) would perpetually be one version
behind the Standard.


-- 
derekr@escape.ca
Derek Ross

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Spaceman Spiff]

D. Ross wrote:
> 
> Matt Corey wrote:
> >
> > The Java v. Ada v. C v. C++ v. Pascal v. Tcl v. Forth v. Scheme v. Eiffel v.
> > Sather v. Awk v. Perl v. Basic v. B v. CLOS  ( breath ) v. Flavors v. RPG v.
> > COBOL v. Fortran v. Clipper v. Modulax v. ObjectiveC v. PL/1 v. PLM v.
> > Assembler v. Rexx v. Smalltalk v. Python language war has now added English.
> 
> We should get Mr. Stroustrup to re-do English... and call it English++.
> 
> Just think how efficient we'd all be if everything we said was
> polymorphic, overloaded, object-oriented and templatized!

Oh yeah!  I'd just love to overload some nouns!
Having several potential meanings for gault would make life easier.

:-)

-Scotty

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mark Wilden]

D. Ross wrote:
> 
> Just think how efficient we'd all be if everything we said was
> polymorphic, overloaded, object-oriented and templatized!

Language is already all of those things. That's one reason why OOP is,
in general, a good way to program--it's closer to the way people think.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Danette & Murray Root]

On Fri, 28 Nov 1997 23:51:48 +0000, Ingemar Ragnemalm <ingemar@lysator.liu.se>
wrote in comp.lang.c:

=> My God, what a thread. I thought that title said it all:
=> 
=> Don't kick the minority. First, it takes a coward to do so,
=> and second, you may find yourself in a minority one day yourself.
=> English vs chinese is just an example, if you only care about
=> numbers.
=> 
=> Personally I love being in minorities. It is more fun, as long as
=> they don't get extinct. Wouldn't it be boring if all people in the
=> world spoke american english, dressed in jeans, ate hamburgers,
=> drank Coke, programmed in C++ on Intel PC's with Windows, sang
=> country&western, ... (etc, etc)
=> 
That's not boring - that's hell. I hate Coke and country&western, Hamburgers
are only good when I cook them. C++ is not as much fun as C and assembler.
Windows is a premature birth (3.x looked more like a still-born, but it was
revived), if it grows up it might be useful.
 
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Be Different -
        THINK!

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

http://mroot.home.mindspring.com

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[William Rapp]

In comp.lang.c Mark Wilden <Mark@mWilden.com> wrote:
: D. Ross wrote:
: > 
: > Just think how efficient we'd all be if everything we said was
: > polymorphic, overloaded, object-oriented and templatized!

: Language is already all of those things. That's one reason why OOP is,
: in general, a good way to program--it's closer to the way people think.

AND IF THEY NEVER LEARN TO WRITE REAL CODE (BECOME DEPENDANT), 
ARE LIMITED TO SOMEONE ELSES SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE.

-AS

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Morgan Palaeo Associates]

Ingemar Ragnemalm <ingemar@lysator.liu.se> wrote:
^
| Personally I love being in minorities. It is more fun, as long as
| they don't get extinct. Wouldn't it be boring if all people in the
| world spoke american english, dressed in jeans, ate hamburgers,
| drank Coke, programmed in C++ on Intel PC's with Windows, sang
| country&western, ... (etc, etc)
v

AOL!

(On some global internet communities, 'AOL' is a code term for
'Me too!' or 'I agree!'.  It's not in terribly wide use, however,
hence this explanatory note.)

----------------------------------------------
Morgan Palaeo Associates
Palynological/Petroleum Geological Consultants

  Postal Address:   Box 161, Maitland, South Australia 5573
  Deliveries: 1 Shannon Tce, Maitland, South Australia 5573
  Phone: (08) 8832 2795
  Fax:   (08) 8832 2798

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Matt Corey]

Ingemar Ragnemalm wrote:
<snip>

>   C++ on Intel PC's with Windows,  sang country&western,
> |
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Them's fightin' words!!  ;-)

Yes, this is another pointless post to a pointless thread.


Matt "Capitalist Redneck" Corey

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[R.E.Donais]

morganpalaeo@peg.apc.org (Morgan Palaeo Associates) wrote:

>AOL!
>
>(On some global internet communities, 'AOL' is a code term for
>'Me too!' or 'I agree!'.  It's not in terribly wide use, however,
>hence this explanatory note.)
>

Its original meaning is America-on-line --- aol.com

The meaning you suggest originates with the numerous AOL members
who contribute little to a discussion and generally do nothing
more than quote articles and append -- 'Me too!' or 'I agree!'.

There's another meaning associated with this.  Kind of an
extension of the above explanation and a play on the first two
letters.  Can you guess what it is?  

I recommend you distance yourself from the acronym altogether.
;-)

    ...red

-- 
Support the anti-Spam amendment
  Join at http://www.cauce.org/

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Mark Wilden]

Jeffrey George wrote:
> 
> I'm not sure I follow your logic here; are you saying that there must be
> a difference between, "re-animate" and "reanimate", simply because they
> are written differently?

No, there doesn't have to be a difference in all cases. In some case,s
though, there is a difference: re-lease and release, e.g.

At any rate, this began when someone used a space between "re" and
another word, and this is incorrect.

Re: English SUCKS, Chinese is the only language you need!!

[Jeffrey George]

This is a defunct thread which has, at this point, absolutely nothing to
do with ada, c, or c++, but I couldn't help but be intrigued enough to
respond to all the same newsgroups where it appeared. Here's my two
cents:

Mark Wilden wrote:
> 
> Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> >
> > Hyphens are not part of the language, they are just an orthographic convention.
> 
> And what do you suppose "orthographic conventions" are part of, if not
> the language? Are you saying there is no difference between "release"
> and "re-lease"?

I'm not sure I follow your logic here; are you saying that there must be
a difference between, "re-animate" and "reanimate", simply because they
are written differently? Surely you don't mean to suggest the converse,
that words which are pronounced and written identically must always have
the same meaning? It might be a shock to the pope to find that he was
periodically releasing a big, smelly, male animal, when all he meant to
do was make an official publication! Well fortunately for the pope, we
differentiate "bull" from "bull", and there is very little confusion.

Once an expression, like "re-activate", enters common usage, the hyphen
vanishes because the word "reactivate" is adopted as part of the common
vocabulary which no longer needs to be clarified by the visual breakdown
of its morphological components. In other words, from a historical
viewpoint, the hyphen is a temporary convenience used to facilitate the
entry of new words into the language's phonological writing system.

Jeff
-- 
----------------
Jeff George
jgeorge@texas.net
When all other means of communication fail, try words.