[Info-vax] IBM Layoffs (quite a bit off topic)

[johnson.eric at gmail.com]

On Wednesday, January 28, 2015 at 1:57:08 PM UTC-5, JF Mezei wrote:

> (consider the ephemeray scripting languages such as perl, php, python,
> ruby on rails etc which are "soupe du jour" and change rapidly. It is
> worth teaching those to first year uni students ?

I think you are being unnecessarily disparaging to at least perl, python
and ruby. In particular, perl and python have been around for nearly 20
years each. Ruby has easily been around a decade on its own too. They
are hardly passing fads.

They certainly facilitate off the cuff unstructured programming. But all three
offer an ability to lock down the hatches and take a far more structured
approach. To dismiss them as "scripting" languages unfairly lumps them
into the same camp as bash or DCL. Interpreted? Yes. Enabling bad habits?
No more so than DEC Basic or any compiled language with the warnings
cranked up.

All of them offer a great suite of libraries and a safe way to explore a
variety of programming concepts including lambdas, generic programming,
and object oriented programming including object reflection. While my
favorite languages are C++ and elisp, I think python, ruby, or even java,
make a fine choice for a first language.

EJ