Xref: utzoo comp.lang.modula2:2971 comp.edu:3474
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!nosun!qiclab!m2xenix!quagga!csgr
From: csgr@quagga.uucp (Geoff Rehmet)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2,comp.edu
Subject: Re: Implementing Abstract Lists
Message-ID: <14048@quagga.uucp>
Date: 9 Aug 90 14:50:21 GMT
References: <13227.26b9800a@qut.edu.au>
Followup-To: comp.lang.modula2
Organization: Rhodes University Computing Centre
Lines: 33

In article <13227.26b9800a@qut.edu.au> cszthomas@qut.edu.au writes:
>In article <8974@ubc-cs.UUCP>, manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) writes: 
>> I switched from Modula-2 to C in my data structures course last year.
>> Afterwards, I really felt that I had lost almost nothing. This isn't a
>> compliment to C, but a criticism of Modula. It really doesn't help you
>> very much with the tough problems.
>  
>I am curious has to how you justify this paragraph?  Granted M2 doesn't
>support generics, but neither does C.  Then there are all of the facilities
>in M2 that C doesn't have.

As a student myself, I would prefer to have my initial data structures
course in Modula-2 rather than C.  C, by allowing you to do clever things
also allows you too much room to shoot yourself in the foot, which 
beginners will very readily do.  (I did have my first data strucures course
in M2.)

It is far more reassuring for beginning students to have their errors 
pointed out to them by their compiler, rather than when their program
crashes (although many of my M2 programs have crashed first try).


(I'm not trying to have a go at C, I like both M2 and C.  So, netters, please 
don't start flaming about the relative merits and demerits of M2 and C!)


Cheers, Geoff.

-- 
Geoff Rehmet       |      Internet: csgr.quagga@f4.n494.z5.fidonet.org          
Rhodes University  |      Uninet  : csgr@quagga      
Grahamstown        |      UUCP    : ..uunet!m2xenix!quagga!csgr
-------------------+