John - I agree with you on the report.
I wonder how HLASM would compare in this kind of study :-) On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 11:02 AM, John Gilmore <[email protected]>wrote: > 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
