> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: [email protected] [mailto:programming- > [email protected]] Namens neville holmes > Verzonden: zondag 25 juli 2010 0:51 > Aan: Programming forum > Onderwerp: Re: [Jprogramming] index origin 0 > (...) > > By the way, the mention of Edsgar Dijkstra in > connection with J/APL is rather ironic. He was > a rabid opponent of APL and I was told that he > was heard at in international conference that > APL would never be used in Holland while he was > around to stop it. > > Neville Holmes, P.O. Box 2412, Bakery Hill 3354, Victoria
"In 1975 Edsger W. Dijkstra, a major figure in the structured-programming movement, wrote a memo titled "How Do We Tell Truths that Might Hurt?" The "truths" were mostly Dijkstra's opinions of programming languages; how he told them was very bluntly. Fortran is "an infantile disorder," PL/I "a fatal disease," APL "a mistake, carried through to perfection." Students exposed to COBOL "are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration," he said. "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." When the memo was published a few years later, defenders of COBOL and BASIC replied in kind, although none of them were quite able to match Dijkstra's acid rhetoric. In fairness, I should note that most disputes over programming languages are neither as vicious nor as humorless as the affair of Dijkstra's "truths." Today's missionaries take an upbeat approach, spending more time in promoting their own religion and less in dissing the other person's beliefs. The message is no longer "You'll burn in hell if you write C." It's "Look what a paradise Python offers you!" (I think maybe I liked the old sermons better.)" from http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-semicolon-wars/4 I myself remember him saying in a lecture that "Basic ruins your life" R.E.Boss ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
