Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!kelly From: kelly@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Language illiteracy Message-ID: <51300008@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 9 May 88 15:57:00 GMT References: <787@trwcsed.trwrb.UUCP> Lines: 28 Nf-ID: #R:trwcsed.trwrb.UUCP:787:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:51300008:000:1673 Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!kelly May 9 10:57:00 1988 /* Written 1:57 pm May 5, 1988 by nevin1@ihlpf.ATT.COM in uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.lang.misc */ >Algol is readily available?? :-) I feel that there is a distinction >between able to write code in a given language and *programming* in a given >language. For example: when a Pascal programmer first learns C, he/she >tends to write C code that looks like Pascal (some even go to the extreme >of doing #define BEGIN {, etc.). Each different language has a paradigm >that goes with it, and in order to be a good *programmer* (vs. coder) in a >given language one must also use the paradigm. Surely, that is the whole point of learning a new programming language. If learning a new language doesn't give you a new paradigm for programming, I don't think you should bother learning it. Part of teaching the language has to be delivering the appropriate paradigm. >>I think the only way to rectify this unfortunate situation, is to require >>that computer language classes teach more the one at a time. Say, showing >>examples of code in atleast three different languages for every problem. >>I seriously doubt this will every happen, but I can always hope. >The languages you mentioned are not all that different; they are all von >Neumann type languages. By programming in, say C, FORTRAN, and Pascal you >really don't learn new ways of approaching a problem. Using C, LISP, and >Smalltalk for the same problem might be a better use of time. A new paradigm is a new way of approaching a problem, isn't it? If LISP and smalltalk give me a whole new way of programming, I'd love to learn them. What do they offer an engineer or scientist doing numerical programming?