I took the trouble to read the original reports from SIU, and I am underwhelmed.
They reflect a peculiar, often implicitly but widely held academic notion that a language A that is easier than another language B for novices to learn is "better" than B. There is still, I suppose, something to be said for teaching some programming in order to demystify computers, and for this purpose simplistic languages may well be useful. We are, however, long past the era in which one needed to be a programmer, albeit usually a poor one, to use computers at all. Professional programmers will certainly be needed in the future; but what they need in a programming language is expressive power, not simplicity achieved by leaving the hard parts out. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
