One thing I would like to mention also is the fact that, in academia, the language should not be the primary focus for programming classes; it is really, at that point, just a vehicle to teach programming logic. If a student can learn how logic works and have a good foundation in understanding good programming concepts, the language can be refined as they choose a job. I am a case-point in study with that truth... I took 2 semesters of C++, 1 of VB (6), 1 of RPG IV, 1 of COBOL, 1 of CL Programming and when I started working for the college, they were still back on RPG II which, for those who may not know what that is (not Role-Playing Games lol), is a fixed format language that is very indicator(boolean) heavy language that frequently uses goto for branching. Even though my instructor taught us to never use a goto, I still find myself (for quick and dirty scripts) using them in Oracle's PL/SQL, although it is very infrequent and never in production scripts.
Respectfully, Bud On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 6:09 PM, Rob Ludwick <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm going to keep this up above the flamewar level here. > > First of all, in all respect, let's get away from labeling things as > "fringe" languages. I think that's more hurtful then helpful. > > As a kid I learned how to program in Applesoft basic. That had line > numbers in it, goto statements, and all the other crap that was awful at > the time (as was deemed so by pascal experts at the time). > > And I turned out okay. ;) There are a lot of people that grew up on > the dos prompt and became productive members of society as well. > > > The main problem I have with python itself is that whitespace *still* > > matters in its syntax. To the best of my knowledge, we no longer use > > punch cards for programming purposes anywhere in industry so that should > > have been phased out long ago. > > You would not believe the fights among professional engineers that were > spent in meetings about a code formatting tool that failed to format to > the given code standard. > > Whitespace matters, as it turns out, even if the language itself is > agnostic about it. > > > Java is similar because in their quest for extremely re-usable cde, > > they usually end up importing tons of data structures unnecessarily, > > which takes it's toll in the form of the humungous memory & cpu > > footprint of their apps. If you want an example, try LSI's new raid > > management software -- java-based, and it shows. > > There's a measurement of risk with any large software project. Java was > successful by removing risk during development. The tradeoff was that > larger iron was needed to run it. More than one company was willing to > do just that, trading labor costs with capital expenditures while > getting a lower risk to deployment. > > It's not good or bad, per se. It just is. > > > I'm not saying it isn't possible to write good programs in even > > fringe > > languages; I'm just saying you better have a damn good reason to use > > a > > fringe language in the first place, since there are going to be fewer > > people using it outside of those non-fringe cases which are more > > easily > > and better covered by mainstream languages. > > I personally believe python is very much in the mainstream. A quick > glance shows there are nearly 2000 python packages in the Ubuntu repos. > > --R > > > > _______________________________________________ > Fwlug mailing list > [email protected] > http://fortwaynelug.org/mailman/listinfo/fwlug_fortwaynelug.org >
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