Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!sun!sunshine!dbercel@ucb-vax.ARPA From: dbercel@ucb-vax.ARPA Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: Disillusionment with Usenix tutorial (moderate length flame) Message-ID: <333@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Wed, 31-Jul-85 00:45:54 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.333 Posted: Wed Jul 31 00:45:54 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 1-Aug-85 06:13:58 EDT Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Lines: 56 From info-unix-request@BRL.ARPA Tue Jul 30 19:44:46 1985 Received: from sun.uucp by sunshine.sun.uucp (4.24/3.14) id AA18048; Tue, 30 Jul 85 19:44:40 pdt Received: by sun.uucp (3.0DEV4/SMI-1.2) id AA05958; Tue, 30 Jul 85 19:37:19 PDT Received: from BRL-TGR.ARPA (brl-tgr.arpa.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3) id AA12235; Mon, 29 Jul 85 20:39:12 pdt Message-Id: <8507300339.AA12235@UCB-VAX.ARPA> Received: from brl-aos.arpa by TGR.BRL.ARPA id aa05388; 29 Jul 85 21:45 EDT Received: from ucla-locus.arpa by AOS.BRL.ARPA id a025851; 29 Jul 85 21:44 EDT Date: Mon, 29 Jul 85 14:32:46 PDT From: Jordan Brown To: INFO-UNIX@BRL.ARPA Subject: Disillusionment with Usenix tutorial (moderate length flame) In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 28 Jul 85 04:47:13 EST Status: R > From: davidl@tekadg.UUCP (Dave) > The "instructor" spent hours going over details of > expression evaluation and other trivia of compiler implementation. These are one of the most important areas to understand in the C language. Much more than in most languages, order of evaluation is important in C. This is the kind of information which allows you to write machine- and compiler- independent C code. C expressions are substantially more complex than those in other languages; people I used to work with, very good programmers but a little raw with C, thought that "char ***x;" was a complex data type and had a little trouble figuring out what it was. > What I expected was a treatment of how the C language might be used > to advantage in various applications such as data base management, > graphics, etc. Why in the world would you expect to get information on these topics in a class on C? These are essentially language-independent topics; a discussion on them should not mention language, except possibly for the purpose of examples. Personally, I automatically discard any book which calls itself "Graphics in C", or any such; I know that my FORTRAN graphics experience will tell me much more than they will. I interpret such books as somebody addressing novices who see "Graphics" and "C" and are looking for a cookbook. > What I got was a sophomoric, at best, review of the > contents of K&R's book, along with some additional information about > how the compiler processes its input - information which any competent > programmer will easily gather from experience in the first few months > of using a new compiler. These are things which they will need to know to read existing code and to produce portable code. They are not things which they will automatically learn by using the language; people using only one machine/compiler are notorious for accidentally writing non-portable code. People brought in from another language will not automatically learn the details of how C data structures work, or how order of evaluation can help and hinder you. BASIC programmers can write BASIC programs in almost any language. Same for PASCAL and FORTRAN programmers.