[Jprogramming] @: and capped fork

[Roger Hui]

I don't think that is true, either the long or the short version.  In
general, knowing bad programming helps you appreciate good programming when
you see it; the people for whom this is not true would have trouble
learning good programming regardless.  IMO.


On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:25 AM, R.E. Boss <r.e.boss at planet.nl> wrote:

> http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/edsgerdijk201164.html
>
> or, as I heard him say much shorter: "Basic ruins your life".
>
>
> R.E. Boss
>
>
> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> > Van: programming-bounces at forums.jsoftware.com [mailto:
> programming-bounces at forums.jsoftware.com] Namens Boyko
> > Bantchev
> > Verzonden: zondag 2 december 2012 0:10
> > Aan: programming at jsoftware.com
> > Onderwerp: Re: [Jprogramming] @: and capped fork
> >
> > On 1 December 2012 16:17, Ian Clark <earthspotty at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > A "training wheels" form of J, tailored to people who know BASIC,
> > > would be so easy to write.
> >
> > Not necessarily.  A BASIC thinking can be so different that hardly
> > any tailoring could possibly exist as a bridge to J.
> >
> > Here is a story.
> >
> > True BASIC is the modern realization of Kemeny & Kurtz's original
> > BASIC.  The product is priced at $500.  Its web site says that
> > 'thousands of schools, colleges, corporations, and laboratories
> > use True BASIC'.  Like the original BASIC, True BASIC's principal
> > target area of application is education.
> >
> > But … there are no first-class Boolean values in this language,
> > or anything in their place.  There are no Boolean (or equivalent)
> > constants.  Boolean expressions can only be used as conditions in
> > statements like IF and DO WHILE, but they are not supposed to have
> > values.  The outcome of Boolean expressions cannot be stored in a
> > variable, passed as an argument or returned from a function.
> >
> > Among other things said of this BASIC is that 'it helps … teach the
> > foundational principles of logic'.  Yet, in the tutorials and other
> > teaching and learning aids one never finds problems that explicitly
> > involve logic.  The latter is no surprise: logical calculations are
> > a hard thing to do without logical values.
> >
> > 'True BASIC' programmers don't even realize that not having a form
> > of Boolean in the language is a limitation.  This is a world with
> > almost no common points with the expression-based world of J.
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
>