From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,4cf070091283b555 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public From: peake@dstos3.dsto.gov.au (Alan Peake) Subject: Re: What's the best language to learn? [was Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/27 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 176686538 references: <4vqt9t$3jk@ns.broadvision.com> organization: Defence Science and Techology Organisation newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer Date: 1996-08-27T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <4vqt9t$3jk@ns.broadvision.com> patrick@broadvision.com (Patrick Horgan) writes: >From: patrick@broadvision.com (Patrick Horgan) >Subject: Re: What's the best language to learn? [was Re: Should I learn C or >Pascal?] >Date: 26 Aug 1996 01:06:05 GMT >In article , dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: >> Tim says >> >> "Because I've found that people tend to stick with the first >> [dare I use the word] paradigm that they are introduced to. >> Everything else they learn will be compared against the first >> thing they learn" >> >> How true is this? Certainly true to some extent, and is of course >> the fundamental reason why it is a huge mistake to teach assembly >> to begin with. >Maybe I'm an anomaly, but this isn't true for me at all. My first language >was BASIC (the old kind with line-numbers;) my second 6502 assembler, and >then I learned small C well enough to get it running on my machine so I >could start learning C. Not true for me either. My first language was Fortran 77 but I haven't used it in 20 years. Next was Basic which gets an occasional run. Various assemblers still get used from time to time but just about everything now gets done in C. I started on MSVC++ a few months ago thinking that this would be the next stage up but I'm not so sure now. The learning curve has been much steeper than I imagined (maybe due to advancing age too !) The handbooks form a pile about a foot high! However, I don't believe that assembly should be taught to CS students initially, if at all. Those that need to know it will pick it up later (on the job training etc.) but most CS graduates will never use it or even need it. Whatever advantages they lose by not learning assembler will be more than offset by the increased productivity of a higher level language. As far as learning the basics of algorithms, what's wrong with the good old flow chart? I still use them for complicated routines. >I certainly didn't imprint on any particular paradigm like I did on an >editor. >(No I'm not telling, we've got too many religious wars going on now;) Come on - you can tell us. Wasn't Wordstar was it? Edlin? Alan