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: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: peake@dstos3.dsto.gov.au (Alan Peake) Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/02 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 171574622 references: organization: Defence Science and Techology Organisation newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-08-02T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: >> silicon i.e., making the tools. As long as the rest of us can use >> the tools, what does it matter how they work? >Then the "rest of us" don't need to go to universities. We're not >talking about how to use tools, we're talking about learning at the >university level. Why bother even learning programming if "the rest >of us" are only going to use the end-products? You still need to learn programming but use the tools that were made by an earlier generation to create something more advanced than the earlier generation were able to create with the tools that they inherited. There is only so much you can stuff into the head of a student in 4 or 5 years at Uni. Technology is expanding at such a rate that while it may be nice to understand programming from assembler up, you have to put your effort into where it will be most useful so if that entails starting at a higher level of abstraction, then so be it. There is a very interesting article by Andrew Koenig in the June '96 issue of the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming, advocating C++ as a first language - worth a read. >This field is not static. Few fields are static. You always need to >learn new things and do things differently and use new tools, even if >you're not the one designing the new things. Quite so. > Do you think the >standard state of affairs should be to require massive retraining >whenever the industry changes? Well, if you look at universities as training grounds for industry then that is what happens; not massively but progressively at any rate. Alan