Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language
In article <[email protected]>, Wolfgang Keller wrote: >> > And ever after that experience, I avoided all languages that were >> > even remotely similar to C, such as C++, Java, C#, Javascript, PHP >> > etc. >> >> I think that's disappointing, for two reasons. Firstly, C syntax isn't >> that terrible. > >It's not just the abysmally appalling, hideously horrifying syntax. At >about everything about C is just *not* "made for human beings" imho. > >It's just an un-language that gets at about everything wrong. Sort of >like Microsoft's products. > >Sincerely, > >Wolfgang > I don't see how you could create a better high-level LOW-LEVEL language. And that pointer "*" syntax is really ingenious. (After all, the guys who created it and those who first used it (at Bell Labs) WERE all geniuses!) David -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language
In article , Neil Cerutti wrote: >On 2013-12-17, Steven D'Aprano > wrote: >> I would really like to see good quality statistics about bugs >> per program written in different languages. I expect that, for >> all we like to make fun of COBOL, it probably has few bugs per >> unit-of-useful-work-done than the equivalent written in C. > >I can't think of a reference, but I to recall that >bugs-per-line-of-code is nearly constant; it is not language >dependent. So, unscientifically, the more work you can get done >in a line of code, then the fewer bugs you'll have per amount of >work done. > >-- >Neil Cerutti > Makes no sense to me. I can't imagine that errors per 100 lines is anywhere near as high with a language that has garbage collection and type checking as with one that has neither. David -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: The Importance of Terminology's Quality
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Waylen Gumbal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Sherman Pendley wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> > >> > > PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.: >> > > FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=: >> > >> > I don't think Xah is trolling here (contrary to his/her habit) >> > but posing an interesting matter of discussion. >> >> It might be interesting in the abstract, but any such discussion, when >> cross-posted to multiple language groups on usenet, will inevitably >> devolve into a flamewar as proponents of the various languages argue >> about which language better expresses the ideas being talked about. >> It's like a law of usenet or something. >> >> If Xah wanted an interesting discussion, he could have posted this to >> one language-neutral group such as comp.programming. He doesn't want >> that - he wants the multi-group flamefest. > >Not everyone follows language-neutral groups (such as comp,programming >as you pointed out), so you actually reach more people by cross posting. >This is what I don't understand - everyone seems to assume that by cross >posting, one intends on start a "flamefest", when in fact most such >"flamefests" are started by those who cannot bring themselves to >skipping over the topic that they so dislike. > >-- >wg Not one person on the planet agrees with me, I believe, but it's always seemed to me that an *advantage* to posting to multiple groups (especially ones generally "interested" in similar subject matter but NOT subject to huge poster/lurker/answerer overlap, er, without too many *people* getting multiple copies of the *same* post) is that it would provide an opportunity of a widely-dispersed bunch of people to have a *joint* discussion, with comments hopefully coming in from a *variety* of viewpoints. David -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: The Importance of Terminology's Quality
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> the importance of naming of functions.
>
Lisp is *so* early a language (1960?), preceeded mainly only by Fortran
(1957?)?,
and for sure the far-and-away the first as a platform for *so many* concepts
of computer-science, eg lexical vs dynamic ("special") variables, passing
*unnamed* functions as args (could Algol 60 also do something like that,
via something it maybe termed a "thunk"), maybe is still the only one
in which program and data have the same representation -- that it'd
seem logical to use it's terminology in all languages.
>From C is the very nice distinction between "formal" and "actual" args.
And from algol-60, own and local -- own sure beats "static"!
And so on.
To me, it's too bad that that hacker-supreme (and certified genius)
Larry W. likes to make up his own terminology for Perl. Sure makes
for a lot of otherwise-unnecessary pages in the various Perl texts,
as well as posts here.
Of course, a whole lot better his terminology than no language at all!
David
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VERY SORRY FOR THAT CROSSPOST; Re: The Importance of Terminology's Quality
(This one is also cross-posted, to apologize to one and all about my just-prior followup.) I stupidly didn't remember that whatever followup I made would also get crossposted until *after* I had kneejerked hit "s" (send) before I noticed the warning (Pnews?) on just how many groups it would be posted to. A suggestion for Pnews: that as soon as you give the F (followup for trn), ie as soon as Pnews starts-up on this followup, before you've typed in anything or given it a filename to include, that AT THAT TIME it remind you that it'll be crossposted to the following 25 newsgroups: 1: foo 2: comp.lang.perl.misc 3: other-group 4: ... , so way before you've said anything, you can abort it if you want to. SORRY! David -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
