Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cs.yale.edu!ahmed-shakil
From: ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Ahmed)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: beginning language--APL
Message-ID: <22376@cs.yale.edu>
Date: 11 Apr 90 21:52:15 GMT
References: <28729@cup.portal.com> <4900002@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@cs.yale.edu
Reply-To: ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Ahmed)
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT  06520-2158
Lines: 21

In article <28729@cup.portal.com>, Edward_M_Cherlin@cup.portal.com writes:
> The question was what should be the first language for CS and non-CS 
> students.  I run the U.S. half of a worldwide non-profit organization
> devoted to making APL the first language.  For non-CS students the
> rationale is that it is a math language which has been successfully 
> introduced in elementary school, and for CS the rationale is that it is
> a math and computer language suitable for math, science, computer design,
> data processing, graphics, music and more.  This argument has been made
> best by Prof. Alan Perlis, when be became chairman of the CS department
> at Yale and made APL the first language for CS there.
> 

APL is no longer the first CS language here.  In fact, APL  hasn't been
taught at all in the YALE CS department for a couple of years now.

-- Shakil Ahmed
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