Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!sun-barr!rutgers!att!cbnewsl!ams
From: ams@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (andrew.m.shaw)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Which language to teach first?
Message-ID: <1603@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>
Date: 24 Aug 89 14:04:00 GMT
References: <416@ryn.esg.dec.com>
Reply-To: ams@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (andrew.m.shaw,580,)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 45

In article <416@ryn.esg.dec.com> cooper@vlab.enet.dec.com (g.d.cooper in the shadowlands) writes:
>In article <1189@sequent.cs.qmc.ac.uk>, jont@cs.qmc.ac.uk (Jon Taylor) writes...
>>In article <1501@shuksan.UUCP> scott@shuksan.UUCP (Scott Moody) writes:
>
>>> ... Try explaining to you future employer that you were
>>>taught to 'learn' other languages easially when they are looking
>>>for expert Ada programmers. The first thing they do is send
>>>you to an Ada course anyway.
>
>
>>.... and you will perform very well on this course, beacuse you
>>will have been given a sound theoretical grounding with which
>>to learn the language(s) of your employers choice.
>
>Yes but then you wouldn't have been hired in the first place.  The
>problem with relying upon your ability to learn in job aquisition is
>that the future employer doesn't want somebody who knows `plover' two
>days from now but one who has been working with it for years.

Are we talking about fresh-outs, or experienced ee/cs's?  A programmer
with a new bachelor's degree is not presumed to know anything anyway.

Clearly any employer that thinks that a course in a new language is
sufficient preparation for anything more than the most trivial application
is sadly misguided.  You have to use a language over time before you
are proficient enough to use it well. 

Moreover, my experience has been that after a programmer has learned n
languages, the n+1th, unless its *theoretical basis* is new to the programmer,
comes effortlessly and is better learned from the manual and examples of good
code than through classroom training.

Thus, the employer who wants a consultant to work with 'plover' today
needs someone experienced and does not care what courses he took in school.
On the other hand, the poor student who, as was suggested elsewhere, learns
only 'plover' and no theory, is a real candidate for the dreaded technological
obsolescence.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day; teach him to fish and you
feed him for a lifetime"

		Andrew Shaw

[The opinions expressed herein are my own and are not to be construed as 
indicative of those of my employer, which has, no doubt, its own views]