From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,2243248c6a74be5 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal? Date: 1996/07/20 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 170151782 references: <4sord0$l0k@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.ada,comp.edu Date: 1996-07-20T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Jon Bell said "I do appreciate the counter-argument that it's asking a lot of students to master both program design skills and language syntax at the same time. Therefore I respect the decisions made by schools that use a "non-marketable" language such as Modula-"n" or Scheme ... and what makes you think that Modula-"n" does not have a language syntax? Even Scheme has a syntax, but it is a simple one. Modula-"n" is a fully developed procedural language with a syntax not particularly more simple than obviously comparable languages. The motivation for teaching Modula-"n", or Scheme is not to avoid teaching syntax (although it is true that Scheme reduces the syntactic burden, but that is not a primary reason for introducing it as a first language (actually in practice scheme is almost never introduced to anyone as a first language -- at schools where scheme is taught in the equivalent of CS1, most students know how to program in some other language first).