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From: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Which language to teach first?
Message-ID: <4552@eos.UUCP>
Date: 2 Aug 89 17:01:27 GMT
References: <3876@shlump.nac.dec.com> <205@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Reply-To: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif.
Lines: 31

Well gee, this debate again......  Time to go, but some observations
since the last time I read this (before .newsrc needed reconstructing)

0) Resolved in the past that multilingual environments were the way to go.

1) It's been interesting talking to a physicist about LISP ["Why
would any one want to use a language like this?..."].  He does see value
in it now.  But still thinks we're crazy.

2) We took on a HS summer student (interested in fluid dynamics not CS, but
knew BASIC).  He said that his BASIC was carried over into his vector
Fortran and C (lots of tight loops).  The point being that hardware can
influence thinking as much as software.  And people use computers for
performance as well as flexibility.

3) I feel sorry for any student who has to learn Pascal as a first
language these days. [considering my old X3J9 days]

Time for some one to start up a cron file to post resolution on this frequently
asked discussion.

You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene
  				Live free or die.