Cobol was really easy, because I was fresh out of second semester assembler. 1st semester was PDP 11, second was os370.
> -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Comstock > Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 6:43 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding > practices ever defensible? > > john gilmore wrote: > > Steve Comstock<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > >> Well, when you are learning Assembler, the work to write reentrant > >> (I, too, prefer that term to the relatively new-fangled > >> "reenterable") can get in the way of focusing on simply how the > >> instructions work and how to string together series of > instructions to accomplish specific tasks. > > > > > > This "pedagogic argument" is a hoary one that cannot be > dismissed out > > of hand. Complexities must sometimes be deferred. > > Agreed. > > > > > Newtonian mechanics, which has its own legitimate and > useful purview, > > is for example taught first, before relativistic mechanics, > in physics > > curricula. > > True > > > > > Deference to what Sir Thomas Browne politely called 'junior > > understanding' is, however, too frequent. To teach techniques that > > have no legitimate non-pedagogic uses is, I think, indefensible. > > Well, I agree. In our programming courses, we _never_ use a > "Hello World" program as an example: how often do you need > that in the "real world"? Never. > > We always begin with how to describe fields, records, and > files and how to use the appropriate file I/O verbs. > > "Never write a line of code to be thrown away." > > > > > > Browne also said that ". . . to produce a clear and > warrantable body > > of truth we must forget and part with much we know"; and > too many of > > the notions that we must jettison have been inflicted upon > us by our teachers. > > > > And much that has proven valuable in our lives has also been > "inflicted" upon us by our teachers. It is true we must often > let go of, or unlearn, what we once thought was truth. Or at > least continually re-examine our assumptions, biases and beliefs. > > As a Unitarian, we are constantly challenged: To question is > the answer. > > But, I digress... > > > > Today assembly language is a putatively 'advanced' topic; it is not > > usually learned first; and students who are already familiar with > > storage classes (with the differences among static, LIFO automatic, > > and non-LIFO heap storage) can and should be introduced to > reentrant > > assembly-language methods at the outset of their training. > > Most often the audience for my Assembler classes are either > new to programming or their experience is with COBOL; in > neither case are they familiar with storage classes and their > differences. So we defer reentrant coding until their 8th day > of training. By then they are ready to focus on this. > That's just my real world experience talking. > > Kind regards, > > -Steve Comstock > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
