On Sat, 2010-10-02 at 07:36 -0700, Cédric Beust ♔ wrote: [ . . . ] > Basic is definitely not receiving enough credit, in my opinion. > Actually, it's being unjustly vilified. Who was it again who said that > anyone who started programming with Basic was irrecoverably corrupt > and would never become a good programmer?
Dijkstra, who is both the source of some great things that have
benefited programming and software development, and things that have
acted as barriers holding back software development for decades.
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to
students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential
programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of
regeneration."
"I think of the company advertising 'Thought Processors' or the
college pretending that learning BASIC suffices or at least
helps, whereas the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a
criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery."
> I bet that a lot of people on this list started programming with Basic
> (myself included), and I think we turned out alright :-)
Hummm... people who started with Basic and yet have become good
programmers in a number of languages must have great powers of recovery
and regeneration. This must mean they are either vampires or trolls ;-)
--
Russel.
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41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: [email protected]
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