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From: jon@hanauma (Jon Claerbout)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Which language to teach first?
Message-ID: <4218@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 3 Aug 89 06:15:02 GMT
Sender: USENET News System <news@Portia.stanford.edu>
Reply-To: jon@hanauma (Jon Claerbout)
Organization: Stanford University, Dept. of Geophysics
Lines: 14

AWK !
I'm just an engineer (National Academy) who does a lot of coding in C,
Ratfor (Fortran), and tinkering with C++,
but I use AWK in system administration
and I think AWK is a super language for beginners,
because it is "great for real problems with natural language."
Also, learning AWK, you learn C-like syntax, and also the UNIX environment.
Further, the AWK textbook (Aho, Whoever, and Kernighan (AWK)) is outstanding!
It is available in both interpreted and compiled forms.

Against AWK, I admit that the language may not be available on micros,
and the new version does not seem to be widespread, although it
is readily available.  If you are seriously interested in what language
to teach first, be sure to look at the AWK book.