Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language
In article 20131216213225.2006b30246e3a08ee241a...@gmx.net, Wolfgang Keller felip...@gmx.net wrote: And ever after that experience, I avoided all languages that were even remotely similar to C, such as C++, Java, C#, Javascript, PHP etc. I think that's disappointing, for two reasons. Firstly, C syntax isn't that terrible. It's not just the abysmally appalling, hideously horrifying syntax. At about everything about C is just *not* made for human beings imho. It's just an un-language that gets at about everything wrong. Sort of like Microsoft's products. Sincerely, Wolfgang I don't see how you could create a better high-level LOW-LEVEL language. And that pointer * syntax is really ingenious. (After all, the guys who created it and those who first used it (at Bell Labs) WERE all geniuses!) David -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language
In article mailman.4286.1387291924.18130.python-l...@python.org, Neil Cerutti ne...@norwich.edu wrote: On 2013-12-17, Steven D'Aprano steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info wrote: I would really like to see good quality statistics about bugs per program written in different languages. I expect that, for all we like to make fun of COBOL, it probably has few bugs per unit-of-useful-work-done than the equivalent written in C. I can't think of a reference, but I to recall that bugs-per-line-of-code is nearly constant; it is not language dependent. So, unscientifically, the more work you can get done in a line of code, then the fewer bugs you'll have per amount of work done. -- Neil Cerutti Makes no sense to me. I can't imagine that errors per 100 lines is anywhere near as high with a language that has garbage collection and type checking as with one that has neither. David -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: The Importance of Terminology's Quality
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Waylen Gumbal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sherman Pendley wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.: FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=: I don't think Xah is trolling here (contrary to his/her habit) but posing an interesting matter of discussion. It might be interesting in the abstract, but any such discussion, when cross-posted to multiple language groups on usenet, will inevitably devolve into a flamewar as proponents of the various languages argue about which language better expresses the ideas being talked about. It's like a law of usenet or something. If Xah wanted an interesting discussion, he could have posted this to one language-neutral group such as comp.programming. He doesn't want that - he wants the multi-group flamefest. Not everyone follows language-neutral groups (such as comp,programming as you pointed out), so you actually reach more people by cross posting. This is what I don't understand - everyone seems to assume that by cross posting, one intends on start a flamefest, when in fact most such flamefests are started by those who cannot bring themselves to skipping over the topic that they so dislike. -- wg Not one person on the planet agrees with me, I believe, but it's always seemed to me that an *advantage* to posting to multiple groups (especially ones generally interested in similar subject matter but NOT subject to huge poster/lurker/answerer overlap, er, without too many *people* getting multiple copies of the *same* post) is that it would provide an opportunity of a widely-dispersed bunch of people to have a *joint* discussion, with comments hopefully coming in from a *variety* of viewpoints. David -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: The Importance of Terminology's Quality
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] the importance of naming of functions. Lisp is *so* early a language (1960?), preceeded mainly only by Fortran (1957?)?, and for sure the far-and-away the first as a platform for *so many* concepts of computer-science, eg lexical vs dynamic (special) variables, passing *unnamed* functions as args (could Algol 60 also do something like that, via something it maybe termed a thunk), maybe is still the only one in which program and data have the same representation -- that it'd seem logical to use it's terminology in all languages. From C is the very nice distinction between formal and actual args. And from algol-60, own and local -- own sure beats static! And so on. To me, it's too bad that that hacker-supreme (and certified genius) Larry W. likes to make up his own terminology for Perl. Sure makes for a lot of otherwise-unnecessary pages in the various Perl texts, as well as posts here. Of course, a whole lot better his terminology than no language at all! David -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
VERY SORRY FOR THAT CROSSPOST; Re: The Importance of Terminology's Quality
(This one is also cross-posted, to apologize to one and all about my just-prior followup.) I stupidly didn't remember that whatever followup I made would also get crossposted until *after* I had kneejerked hit s (send) before I noticed the warning (Pnews?) on just how many groups it would be posted to. A suggestion for Pnews: that as soon as you give the F (followup for trn), ie as soon as Pnews starts-up on this followup, before you've typed in anything or given it a filename to include, that AT THAT TIME it remind you that it'll be crossposted to the following 25 newsgroups: 1: foo 2: comp.lang.perl.misc 3: other-group 4: ... , so way before you've said anything, you can abort it if you want to. SORRY! David -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
