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From: crowl@rochester.ARPA (Lawrence Crowl)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: No Braindamage
Message-ID: <16914@rochester.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 5-Apr-86 13:12:25 EST
Article-I.D.: rocheste.16914
Posted: Sat Apr  5 13:12:25 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Apr-86 06:48:15 EST
References: <7900004@ztivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: crowl@rochester.UUCP (Lawrence Crowl)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 35

In article <7900004@ztivax.UUCP> david@ztivax.UUCP writes:
>
>Someone mentioned that BASIC is good for instruction because of its
>interactive environment.  I think using an interpretive form of C for
>example, would be a much better approach.  And C is easy enough to
>parse that an interpretor would be reasonably efficient.
 
You want to dump C on beginners?  You're joking!  It is difficult enough
for beginning students to learn programming without problems such as:

    Placing "&" in front of variables for scanf but not printf unless
        the variable is an array.
    The possible multiple evaluation of "++" parameters in macro
        functions but not in procedure functions.
    The importance of making sure their strings are null terminated.
    And many others.

There are many languages that solve BASIC's problems, while still 
presenting an understandable interface, such as LOGO.  

>
>Therefore, I still hold that the language should be natural and not
>brain damaged, because sometimes even us programmers with advanced
>degrees, over 10 years professional experience, and IQs well over 150
>need to think at the keyboard from time to time.

So why are you using C?  Is it because it REQUIRES you to use all of
your 10 years professional experience AND "well over 150" IQ?  These
are not attributes we can expect of beginning programmers!

-- 

Lawrence Crowl             716-275-5766        University of Rochester
                                               Computer Science Department
...!{allegra,decvax,seismo}!rochester!crowl    Rochester, New York,  14627