🚀 go-pugleaf

/* Written  1:57 pm  May  5, 1988 by nevin1@ihlpf.ATT.COM in uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.lang.misc */
>Algol is readily available?? :-)   I feel that there is a distinction
>between able to write code in a given language and *programming* in a given
>language.  For example:  when a Pascal programmer first learns C, he/she
>tends to write C code that looks like Pascal (some even go to the extreme
>of doing #define BEGIN {, etc.).  Each different language has a paradigm
>that goes with it, and in order to be a good *programmer* (vs. coder) in a
>given language one must also use the paradigm.

Surely, that is the whole point of learning a new programming language.
If learning a new language doesn't give you a new paradigm for programming,
I don't think you should bother learning it.  Part of teaching the language
has to be delivering the appropriate paradigm.

>>I think the only way to rectify this unfortunate situation, is to require
>>that computer language classes teach more the one at a time.  Say, showing
>>examples of code in atleast three different languages for every problem.
>>I seriously doubt this will every happen, but I can always hope.

>The languages you mentioned are not all that different; they are all von
>Neumann type languages.  By programming in, say C, FORTRAN, and Pascal you
>really don't learn new ways of approaching a problem.  Using C, LISP, and
>Smalltalk for the same problem might be a better use of time.

A new paradigm is a new way of approaching a problem, isn't it?
If LISP and smalltalk give me a whole new way of programming, I'd love to
learn them.  What do they offer an engineer or scientist doing numerical
programming?