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From: jcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: C's sins of commission (was: (pssst...fortran?))
Message-ID: <1990Sep14.212806.8131@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov>
Date: 14 Sep 90 21:28:06 GMT
References: <1990Sep14.160429.2732@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> <9009141908.AA24760@world.std.com>
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>Also, most students have problems with pointers because their teachers
>didn't understand them. No joke. Somewhere they became these bogey-men
>and teachers in intro courses would stand up there and give all these
>signals to the class that what s/he is about to teach is impossible to
>understand so here we go...
>
>I just told them funny stories about the confusions between the thing
>and the thing contained ("The White House said today...") and went on
>with it and never had any problems. A location is not really a hard
>problem, houses have addresses etc, pigeon-holes with box numbers and
>so forth. The hard problem was lousy teachers with worse attitudes.
>
I couldn't agree more...I guess the point I was trying to make was
that pointers are NOT difficult to understand AND they provide
much needed flexibility...If a programmer does not understand them,
most languages provide useful alternatives for them to use...but
don't take them away from people who understand and can use them
effectively...

>
>I think the future of programming, however, lies in moving the
>solution of the problem closer to the problem. Programming languages
>are for programmers, people trained in a specific skill. People who do
>not have that training should have applications packages and
>generators.
>
>[...stuff deleted...]
>
>Programming is a skill, like driving a semi, most people shouldn't
>need that skill.

Exactly!!! Programmers should help provide the tools for non-programmers
to use...Programming languages SHOULD NOT be restricted to provide
safety for novice/non-programmers at the expense of those that can
benefit from the flexibility of "dangerous" attributes such as pointers...

John
(jcburt@cs.wm.edu)
(jcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov)