Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uupsi!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: How to Choose a Programming Language
Message-ID: <16117@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 11 May 91 01:53:03 GMT
References: <14309@ucrmath.ucr.edu> <1991May9.231820.26867@utstat.uucp>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 29

In article <1991May9.231820.26867@utstat.uucp> philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes:
>So the issue of not being able to deal with symbols is very distressing.
>It has forced some of the APL community to adopt an ASCII character set, ...

It had nothing to do with the ability of PEOPLE to deal with symbols,
but rather with the unavailability of Iverson's funny symbols in most
computer character code sets.

>Every era seems to have its in language. C is the current one( and one that
>I find very unappealing). There was PL/1 at one point. It seems that every
>generation is told to learn this or else. People would be much better of
>learning how various cpu's work, how mathematics works, etc...After the
>concepts are established, they can get down to the passing fads.

I think every professional programmer should be able to READ well-written
programs in Fortran, Algol, Lisp, Pascal, C, and Ada, since one is likely
to encounter all of these in published articles of general interest to
programmers in any language.  You should of course be quite proficient in
whatever language you actually use in your work.

There is not much need for understanding CPU architectures for most
programming, and it can even impair one's ability to code portably.

Several lifetimes would not be enough to completely master all of known
mathematics.  I don't think that should be a prerequisite for computing.
Presumably, you had in mind a certain level of mathematical understanding.
It should be noted that the ACM has had committees study the whole area
of computer science education, and their recommendations have been
published.  Anyone who really cares about this should probably look it up.