[Info-vax] [OT] Programming languages, was: Re: Long uptime cut short by Hurricane Sandy

[Simon Clubley]

On 2013-02-01, Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
> In article <keh5hd$p3p$1 at dont-email.me>,
> 	Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>> 
>> BTW, sometimes I go looking for new languages which can be used for real
>> time embedded programming on the typical boards available today and have
>> been designed to be safer than C.
>
> What about Safe C? :-)
>

The Safe C library only deals with the C RTL; it does nothing for the C
syntax or language semantics.

Most of the bare metal C embedded code I write for 8-bit MCUs and low end
ARMs does not go anywhere near the C RTL.

>
>> 
>> Yes, I know about C++ :-), but I have decided not to go down that path
>> for my own embedded projects. What is been taught by universities as
>> Ada's replacement these days ?
>
> What day is this?  Whatever language has found itself in vogue becomes
> the golden boy of the academic world.  Fortran -> Pascal -> Ada -> Java ->
> With a little Modula thrown in along the way.  No telling what comes
> next as there is seldom much logic in the choice.
>

That's a shame. While it's important the skills you learn at university
should be relevant in later life, university should be more about teaching
concepts and learning how to learn; it should not be about teaching the
language of the month if that damages the teaching of those concepts.

You can always learn whatever has become the current fashionable language
at the time you enter the workplace.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world