Re: FORTRAN or COBOL first ?

From: TimC (tconnors_at_no.astro.spam.swin.accepted.edu.here.au)
Date: 10/21/03 

Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 08:34:45 GMT

Mark Westwood [EPCC] (aka Bruce) was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> Hi
>
> For what it's worth - neither Fortran nor COBOL should be regarded as a
> good first computer language to learn. That is, unless you have a need
> to learn Fortran or COBOL.

Hell no. Fortran 66 is the best language to learn. I would follow
through on HC16 assembly language next.

> The first language to learn depends on your answer to this question: why
> do you want to learn a programming language ? For a lot of answers a
> good first language is Java, for others it's LISP/Scheme, for many it's C,
>
> Mark
>
> English Teacher wrote:
>> Which is a better first computer language to learn? Cobol or Fortran?
>> Are they still used professionally? Or are they only learning
>> languages?

One thinks Mark needs a lesson on what a troll is. Perhaps he could
look at the newsfroup line for a hint? 

-- 
TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/
"*Real* real programmers use `zcat > a.out' 'cause you can type faster"

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