Oh, what fun! One would hope for a possibly more enlightened attitude
from academia.
You have received a couple of full and useful replies already. The only
defence I can assume for this sort of attitude is that it might be
possible to use Perl for a couple of years without learning much about
algorithms and data structures, still considering oneself to be a
productive Perl programmer. With C or Cobol this would be more unlikely
as these are actually lower level languages than Perl, and hence a
greater burden falls upon the programmer himself.
However, to state that Perl is not a high level language betrays a lack
of understanding which might be reason to reconsider your application,
should you have that option. I know both Perl and C++ very well, and I
cannot think of a useful definition of a high level language which does
not place Perl at a higher level than C++.
If you believe that your use of Perl has given you experience in those
areas that are being asked for, all you have to do is show that Perl is
more than just a scripting language (whatever that is). I can recommend
two books which you might want to encourage your friends to read - I'm
sure they'll learn something ;-) Of course, you'll probably want to
read them yourself too, whether or not you take this course. These are
not beginners books, and their focus is not on Perl per se, but rather
on using Perl to solve problems.
The first recommendation is "Mastering Algorithms with Perl" by Jon
Orwant, Jarkko Hietaniemi and John MacDonald, published by O'Reilly.
This is an excellent book and proves that Perl is well suited to solving
complex problems and exploring algorithms, precisely because it is such
a high level language. Perl stays out of the way leaving you to worry
about your algorithm rather than the language in which it is
implemented. The authors are all well known in the Perl world. In fact
Jarkko is currently the maintainer of the Perl source code.
The second recommendation is "Object Oriented Perl" by Damian Conway,
published by Manning. Again, this is an excellent book which provides a
comprehensive guide to the concepts and techniques of OO programming in
Perl. A thorough understanding of the material in this book will also
help you see then flaws in the C++ OO system ;-) Possibly as important
for you, this book is written by Dr. Damian Conway of Monash University
in Melbourne, Australia. He certainly doesn't think Perl is a low level
language. You could do a lot worse than suggesting that your
admissions councillor contact Dr Conway to ask his opinion.
Good luck.
--
Paul Johnson - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pjcj.net
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