Re: perspective on ruby

Edward Elliott <nobody@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
course in C++ doesn't cut it, the curriculum should either use different
languages fitted to each task or emphasize a single language with broad
abilities (picking the best programming model for each task). Java is

The only "single language" I could see fitting that role is Mozart,
deliberately designed to be SUPER-multi-paradigm -- not even Lisp and
Scheme (the only real competition) can compare.

While Mozart appears cool, I really think that a wider variety of
languages would help -- some machine code (possibly abstract a la
Mixal), C (a must, *SO* much is written in it!), at least one of C++, D,
or ObjectiveC, either Scheme or Lisp, either *ML or Haskell, either
Python or Ruby, and at least one "OOP-only" language such as Java, C#,
Eiffel, or Smalltalk. For a tipycal CS bachelor course, a set of over
half a dozen languages might be overkill, admittedly (particularly
because these are just the "general purpose" languages -- you no doubt
also want to present XML and friends, possibly XSLT, definitely SQL, and
several other *special*-purpose language classes, too....!!!); too much
time would end up devoted to semirelevant syntax differences...

Note that I'm talking about teaching languages. Outside the classroom my
choices would be completely different.

Absolutely, I'm thinking about CS courses specifically -- for science
and engineering courses, I'd have much different sets (yes, Virginia,
there ARE fields where you still absolutely need to know Fortran!-), for
humanities and soft-sciences other ones yet, and the real world is a
different (and frightening;-) sort of place!-)


Alex

.

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