Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!csrdi
From: csrdi@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Janet: csrdi@edinburgh.its63b)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Re: First Languages (yet again)
Message-ID: <932@its63b.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 29 Jan 88 12:40:47 GMT
References: <4022@ames.arpa> <2400002@otter.HP.COM>
Reply-To: RDI@uk.ac.ed.ecsvax (Rick Innis, CS4)
Organization: Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Lines: 20

Well, at Edinburgh we've been using Pascal for the last few years, but there
is now a movement afoot to use ML as the first teaching language. I know that
this year's first year will be getting introduced to ML quite shortly.

My own experience of learning ML (in second year) had quite an effect on my
programming style. Learning Prolog also affected it - I think in both cases for
the better. Functional languages certainly give a greater appreciation of the
computational process, I think, than procedural languages do. If you want an
understanding of what's happening at that level, something like ML is a very
good first language.

	--Rick.

-- 
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