Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ho95e!wcs
From: wcs@ho95e.ATT.COM (Bill.Stewart)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: First Languages (yet again)
Message-ID: <1982@ho95e.ATT.COM>
Date: 14 Feb 88 05:04:46 GMT
References: <4022@ames.arpa> <2400002@otter.HP.COM> <932@its63b.ed.ac.uk> <2781@omepd> <3730@megaron.arizona.edu>
Reply-To: wcs@ho95e.UUCP (46323-Bill.Stewart,2G218,x0705,)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs 46133, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 38

In article <3730@megaron.arizona.edu> debray@arizona.edu (Saumya Debray) writes:
>	> I contend that exposing first-year students to a functional
>	> programming language does not fit that role.
>
>Assuming you're not referring to two-year trade schools that crank out
>programmers, I disagree.  In my opinion, a primary purpose of a CS
>degree program is to teach students the basic principles of computation.
	Remember that 1st-year students, even CS students, are studying
	more than just CS100, and, if possible, they should have *some*
	usable programming knowledge as soon as possible.  While it's
	probably a Bad Thing to expose them to BASIC, whatever
	functional language you teach them had better be adequate for
	doing chemistry and physics homework, numerical integration for
	calculus, statistics for their psych classes, and the like.

	If you have to do this by providing standard library functions
	in your Random-Lisp distribution, fine.  But if you don't do
	it, they'll be off writing scurvy hacks in RPN or BASIC or
	Lotus Macro Language, learning all the bad habits you're
	trying to shield them from.  And somewhere along the lines,
	engineering students will *have* to learn Fortran, if only so
	they can do interesting *engineering* research without having
	to rewrite EISPAK and its hench-programs.

>	> [ ... ]  I have just changed jobs.  In no interview was I asked
>	> whether I knew ML; in every interview I was asked if I knew C.
> [ good negative comment about interviewers ]
	The college I went to didn't offer COBOL, either, though it's
	probably useful in a "how the other half lives" survey course.
	I've been meaning to learn Zetalisp to upgrade my resume.
	(it starts with "Ada" or "Algol", depending on the interviewer.
	Any real interviewer will want to know what I *really* can do,
	but to interview at larger companies you may need the buzzword list
	there so the personnel people will pass it on to the people you
	really care about.)
-- 
#				Thanks;
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G218, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs