🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec25.073517.16089@grebyn.com>, malak@grebyn.com (Michael Malak) writes:
> In article <1992Dec25.050515.20871@ncsu.edu> bank@lea.csc.ncsu.edu (Belgarath the Sorcerer) writes:

> >4) Even if you're not going into OOP, do NOT take up Pascal as
> >    a road to C. ...
 
> Oh?  Have you ever seen C code written by a former FORTRAN programmer?
> If so, by how many?  Universally you will find:
>    1) Very short, illegible variable and function names, with the
>       first character wasted (all integers must start with 'i', don't
>       you know)
>    2) No use of structures
>    3) No linked lists or trees
>    4) No whitespace
>    5) Lots of illegible "creative" formulas
>    6) No comments

As one who learned FORTRAN first, I consider this a slur; were it applied
to me directly it would be a libel.  The word `Universally' is used in
error.

Before I learned C I began to declare all my FORTRAN variables; there
were no wasted initial letters.  And after I learned C, my FORTRAN began
to look like C.

A FORTRAN programmer who meets bad C will not learn good habits from it;
a FORTRAN programmer who meets good C will.  `Good C' does not just mean
C free from the defects you give; it means C that expresses a good design
using C's idioms well.

If the FORTRAN programmer whom you have watched learn C did not have good
C to learn from, do not blame C.
-- 
 (This man's opinions are his own.)
 From mole-end				Mark Terribile

 mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us, Somewhere in Matawan, NJ