----- Original Message -----
From: Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Crossfire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: David Zverina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2000 2:25 PM
Subject: Re: [SLUG] Learning to program
> On Thu, 14 Dec 2000, Crossfire wrote:
> > From: David Zverina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > any _decent_ $foo programmer can pick up $bar. Sorry couldn't resist
> > either.
> > > :)
> >
> > And its for this reason why you should pick well designed languages for
> > education, rather than real-world langauges.
>
> Surely that comment was at least a little tongue in cheek. In any case,
> when you are asking what is a good language for education, there is more
> at issue than just the language design. As I suggested already, two
> important issues are whether there are lots of examples you can look at,
> and whether there are lots of people you can talk to about how to
> approach and solve problems.
Most "well designed" languages have good reference material availible.
> If we consider Blue (if you weren't meaning Blue any more ignore this
> para), I think we'd find that the set of people you can talk to
I was meaning any well designed langauge - I haven't seen Blue.
> If you are suggesting something other than Blue, I'd be interested to
> hear the suggestion.
For example, first year university, we did Modula-2. We had a good TextBook
availible. The existing documentation was excellent. Everything worked
beautifully. Modula-2 is easily described as C with strict typecasting and
a pascal-like syntax. That, and you don't [consiously] need to use pointers
anywhere near as much as you need to in C.
Java is a better teaching language than C++ for similar reasons. [Java lacks
C++'s cruft, overcomplicated syntax, and overcomplicated structures]. In
fact, Java is the only Real-world language that I'd consider suitable for a
`beginner', but only if the emphasis was OO, and not procedural programming.
...
As for functional languages, I wish we did PostScript instead of Miranda - I
ended up teaching myself Postscript, and had a lot more fun with it :)
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