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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,7bcba1db9ed24fa7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-09 02:44:08 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!iad-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!iad-read.news.verio.net.POSTED!kilgallen From: Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: One True Language (was: is Ada dead?) Message-ID: References: <3B460DA9.C2965042@ix.netcom.com> <9ff447f2.0107061757.34ca0723@posting.google.com> <3b47806a_4@news3.prserv.net> <877kxianb2.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <9ibs7t$mim$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> Organization: LJK Software Date: 9 Jul 2001 05:43:32 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.44.122.34 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: iad-read.news.verio.net 994671830 216.44.122.34 (Mon, 09 Jul 2001 09:43:50 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001 09:43:50 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:9663 Date: 2001-07-09T05:43:32-05:00 List-Id: In article <9ibs7t$mim$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "Bobby D. Bryant" writes: > Languages are ephemeral. If I were designing a CS curriculum I would > require the students to use a different language every semester: partly > so they would be flexible when they graduated and got a job in the Real > World, partly so they wouldn't develop the One True Language mentality > that you see so often, and partly so they would learn to see beyond the > syntax to the underlying universals. My wife recently took a class in a proprietary language, and asked the instructor if the language had such a thing as constants that could be used for array boundaries, thus allowing the dimensions of the arrays to be symbolic, defined once at the top. The instructor said there were constants, but using them in that fashion was not the style of . Furthermore, he did not see any reason for doing that when it was so easy to stick in a hardcoded number, a method that was (to him) much more clear. Experimentation in the lab part of the course proved that my wife's natural instinct was supported by the language, even if not by the instructor. I cannot see the instructor giving that answer if he knew 5 other languages (any languages).