All successful languages are a mixture of all styles, with parts that are functional, imperative, object-oriented, etc. A programmer needs to learn them all.
Brad Myers -----Original Message----- From: Richard O'Keefe [mailto:o...@cs.otago.ac.nz] Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 6:04 PM To: keith gallagher Cc: William Billingsley; Ppig-Discuss-List Subject: Re: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms On Nov 24, 2009, at 3:18 AM, keith gallagher wrote: > like i said, i'm not sure intuition exists.... What's quite certain is that *claims* of intuitiveness exist. I think it's possible to operationalise the concept. Given languages of similar syntactic complexity, which of several paradigms is easier to learn to a specified criterion? William Billingsley's anecdote suggests (what we should by now expect): a heterogeneous population, some of whom find one approach easier, and some of whom find another. From a teaching point of view, would it be possible to offer two introductory streams, one functional and one imperative, and let students choose and/or transfer early?
