Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!apple!bionet!ig!arizona!kwalker
From: kwalker@arizona.edu (Kenneth Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Languages in the the REAL world -- Listing
Message-ID: <7974@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 19 Nov 88 00:30:28 GMT
References: <325@lafcol.UUCP> <4950001@hpiacla.HP.COM>
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 15

In article <4950001@hpiacla.HP.COM>, scottg@hpiacla.HP.COM (Scott Gulland) writes:
> 
> So although a week may be a little short, a competent software
> engineer should be able to become good-and-fluent in ANY new language
> in less than 6 weeks with most learned in 1-3 weeks.

Not ANY new language. A person can be a competent software engineer and
only know languages like Fortran, Pascal, and C. A person who has programmed
only in such languages for several years may find it very difficult to
master languages like PROLOG and Icon, that have fundamentally different
underlying paradyms. While it is true that such a person can quickly learn
to use Icon because it allows them to almost ignore the underlying
goal-directed evaluation, that is not being "good-and-fluent" in the
language. PROLOG, however, **requires** thinking about problems in a very
different manner.