----- Original Message ----- From: "Adam Turoff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > By the early 90s, Pascal had fallen out of favor; a comparable set of > textbooks used C, and all of the newer, more interesting texts used C. > No one was interested in hiring Pascal programmers, but C programmers were > almost assured of a job.
Universities trying to anticipate the Next Best Thing can be the Evil Energizer Bunny of Academia as they propel their students down the wrong path. Recently, I figured that I would brush up on my C by taking some classes at Portland State University (I'm terribly undisciplined when it's not work-related :). After not finding any classes, I called the school and a person who identified himself as the head of the Comp Sci department informed me that they no longer taught C because "it's obsolete" and no one uses it any more (sshhhh... don't tell Brian Ingerson). Now, they focus on C++ and Java because OO programming is the future and no one does procedural programming anymore. Yeah, right. While admittedly those languages may help their students get jobs, I suspect that telling them that OO is the One True Path is doing them a disservice. Cheers, Ovid
