garry@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Garry Wiegand) (01/11/87)
In a recent article sommar@enea.UUCP (Erland Sommarskog) wrote: > ... What Wirth and no one else probably didn't >realize is that the language you learn first is the one you know best and >the one you prefer... You gotta be kidding!!! PDP-11 assembler? TRS-80 Basic?? For me it was the language I learned 4th that I like best (and unfortunately no longer have a compiler for) - dear old Simula. Learning Fortran as #1 just allowed me to appreciate the beauty of the world better when I later encountered structured languages. Though I still use Fortran when I need to do a quickie (and don't want to bother typing in all those declarations :-) garry wiegand (garry%cadif-oak@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu)
sommar@enea.UUCP (Erland Sommarskog) (01/13/87)
This was intended as a personal reply. However my mail came back with "host unknown". Since I think that its content is of enough of general interest I post it to the net instead. In article <1992@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> garry%cadif-oak@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu writes: >In a recent article sommar@enea.UUCP (Erland Sommarskog) wrote: >> ... What Wirth and no one else probably didn't >>realize is that the language you learn first is the one you know best and >>the one you prefer... > >You gotta be kidding!!! PDP-11 assembler? TRS-80 Basic?? > >For me it was the language I learned 4th that I like best (and >unfortunately no longer have a compiler for) - dear old Simula. Learning >Fortran as #1 just allowed me to appreciate the beauty of the world >better when I later encountered structured languages. No, I am not kidding. I think my assertion holds for many people. There are those who were raised on assembler who still really can't see why they should program in a high-level language. And I would claim that the statement "real programmers can write Fortran in any language" has this background too. Of course not everyone is like this. Some people may accept one or two changes of paradigm before they stiffen into something. Some are even more open for new influences. And specially; they are not satisfied with what they have right now, they want better things. Apparently you are of the latter kind which enlightens me. I met Simula as my 5th language or so and it is still my favourite, although I have more or less given up hope to work with it. Anyway, Ada is not that bad either. By the way, I read your article about VMS vs. Unix in mod.computers.vax. It was very amusing and interesting. Erland
libes@nbs-amrf.UUCP (Don Libes) (01/13/87)
> >> ... What Wirth and no one else probably didn't > >>realize is that the language you learn first is the one you know best and > >>the one you prefer... > > > >For me it was the language I learned 4th that I like best (and > > Of course not everyone is like this. Some people may accept one or two > changes of paradigm before they stiffen into something. Some are even more > open for new influences. And specially; they are not satisfied with what > they have right now, they want better things. I don't agree with any of you. I've learned many languages. After some initial courtships (no names, sorry) I gave up falling in love with every new one that came along. I have yet to be satisfied by any language, and don't expect to be in the future. However that doesn't mean I don't have as good a time as possible with any language that seems appropriate to the time and place. Don Libes {seismo,mimsy}!nbs-amrf!libes