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From: jba@harald.ruc.dk (Jan B. Andersen)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re^2: models (was Which language to teach first?)
Message-ID: <65@harald.UUCP>
Date: 2 Aug 89 16:21:44 GMT
References: <8514@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <7870002@hp-lsd.HP.COM>
Organization: RUC - Roskilde University Center, Denmark
Lines: 34

tbc@hp-lsd.HP.COM (Tim Chambers) writes:

<I learned Pascal on-the-job during a summer internship after learning Lisp and
<CLU in school.  The semester I returned, I confronted my software engineering
<professor about why I had to learn CLU to do my labs instead of using an
<"industrial" language like Pascal or C.  He reinforced the school's philosophy
<that precious class time should not be wasted teaching language particulars;
<rather, if we had learned a basis for software design, we could apply those
<principles to *any* language we might encounter.  (Indeed, CLU was a "pet"
<language of the department, but it was *tuned* for teaching good
<object-oriented design techniques before Ada or, I believe, C++ and
<Objective-C, were available.)

Not knowing CLU I'm not sure what is meant by *tuned*, but the same
philosophy applies to Roskilde University. Long time before Ada and C++
was even thought of, SIMULA was chosen as the primary language for
the computer science students. In SIMULA one has classes, inheritance,
virtual procedures, automatically garbage collection etc.

<I have seen the merits of Pascal,
<Gosling's Mock-lisp, C, Ada, Objective-C, C++, Smalltalk, Prolog, and assembly
<language debated during my career.  My education allowed me to adapt to
<whatever language my employer has required me apply.

Agreed. When you have learned an algorithmic language containing these
concepts, you won't have to learn something totally new, just how to

  1) write it using another syntax, or

  2) simulate it, using the available language constructs.

Prolog and Lisp however, might be more difficult.
-- 
Jan B. Andersen                              ("SIMULA does it with CLASS")