Re: My First Computer (was Computing Editorial)

[Cameron Kaiser <ckaiser@floodgap.com>]

Lee Hart <leeahart@earthlink.net> writes:

>>I would recommend python as a language that is very well suited to
>>beginners.  Perl (which is very similar) is the runner up.

>Good heavens! You think they are *easy* to learn? Both are very large
>and sophisticated languages, that require substantial computer resources
>to run. There are so many choices of how to do things that I think a
>beginner would be totally lost.

With most of the in-vogue development languages, you have to utter
strange incarnations (i.e. glue code, headers, etc.), before you can
even start to do something interactive.

Yet, at least in Perl (I'm not a Python programmer), you can get a
program working with very minimal effort. I picked up Perl as a method to
passing a computational linguistics course in an afternoon.

I don't see what's so tricky, per se, about

	$a = <STDIN>;

vs

	input a$

--
      Cameron Kaiser * ckaiser@floodgap.com * posting with a Commodore 128
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