[Info-vax] Programming languages, was: Re: VMS documentation

[abrsvc]

> And if they only know Fortran, that's all they can do.
> Simon. 
> 
Horse crap!!

I started with an assembly language for the 6502 and the first "real" programming language was FORTRAN.
Since then, I have successfully coded in many languages (last count 15+).  Don't generalize.

I also disagree that the language makes the programmer.  Programming is a way of thinking and logical progression of steps.   Yes these steps may happen in parallel, but fundamentally, programming is just a way to state steps in solving a problem.
 
I think that it is much more valuable to learn how to think and break down problems into steps rather than to be an expert in the syntax of a language.  You can easily look up the syntax on how to accomplish what you need to accomplish.  It is much harder to "fit" an elegant technique to a problem just for the sake of using that technique.  And yes, I have seen programmers "find a way" to use a feature of a language even though it was not the right way to get the job done.