🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <25ffdf21.179d@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, jdudeck@polyslo (John R. Dudeck) writes:
>Having seen that the concensus here is along these lines, I find it 
>unusual to see that in other parts of the world it is ML that is the 
>standard language, and C is only looked at as a "get your hands dirty"
>language.

... which is how we regard it here at Edinburgh (home of ML, of
course). I don't think that C has any redeeming features as a
language to illustrate software techniques. I use it on my Macintosh,
at home, but we use ML as systems language for everything else.

>I suppose that there really is a significant difference in the mainstream
>mentality of our educational institutions, between Europe-&-Commonwealth and
>America.  Of course there are considerable differences between schools in
>the US, but overall we have a concern for preparing students for industry/
>business, and there is very little learning for learning's sake.

First point: ML is a language with a deep mathematical underpinning;
the polymorphic type system, the soundness and principality proofs,the
static semantics of modules and parameterisation, the full operational
semantics of the language (coming to a bookstore near you, soon), and
so on. Ditto for Miranda with its close relation to the
lambda-calculus. I get the feeling that this makes these languages
unpopular in the US where a computer language is a practical tool to
get a job done, and the underlying theory is seen as irrelevant. "So
what if the C type system is unsound or incomplete?" I'd be curious
(and this is not a flame) to hear how many software people don't care
about the things I mentioned at the start of this paragraph, and why.

Second point: new languages are not "learning for learning's sake";
the sooner the newer languages (be they functional, OO, or whatever,
and no, I *don't* mean C++ here) take over from the old low-level
languages we use for the majority of software development today,
the sooner software development will become less time consuming
and error prone.

>John Dudeck

		Nick.
--
Nick Rothwell,	Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh.
		nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk    <Atlantic Ocean>!mcsun!ukc!lfcs!nick
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
      A prop?   ...or wings?      A prop?   ...or wings?      A prop?