Subject: Re: is lisp a general purpose lang? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 18:12:21 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3226673556736316@naggum.net> * Erik Naggum > In order to learn to use any other programming language, a Scheme-trained > programmer has to forget all of Scheme and relearn everything from > scratch. * Thomas Bushnell, BSG | This is directly contradicted by the experience of those universities | that use Scheme to teach elementary programming--MIT, Oberlin, Rice, and | others. My education is from the University of Oslo, Informatics Department, which brags that its senior staff invented Simula and object-oriented programming. They thought, for many years, that their students were not hampered by, indeed benefited from, learning Simula in their introductory courses. Industry, students, etc, disagreed strongly. Now they teach Java. At the University of Bergen, the same story played out. For some reason, I do not generally trust people who would be seriously financially or prestigeously damaged if the argument they make turned out to be untrue, which is why I tend to push the prestige button on people to see if their stake is personal. Some, like you, tend to take this very deeply personally, but prove to be untrustworthy because of it. | There is no particular difficulty in moving on to other languages and | other styles of programming. There is ample evidence here and elsewhere to the contrary. That you say something does not make it true. When you jump out to contradict me, there is reason to believe it not even true to begin with. All this crap about writing your advisors and now your department proves that you lack the integrity and intellectual honesty that would have made you useful int his forum. However, as long as you can be seriously hurt by being a retarded prick in your department, it is likely that you manage to fake a reasonably conforming student and obey those rules that are necessary to get your degree, but none others, just like that line about your boss that you claim people misunderstood. So when you say something that simply contradicts something I have said, we have reason to believe that (1) you would be hurt if the truth I have spoken came out, and (2) your inability to deal with arguments leads you to attack the person and want to ambarrass and make unpleasant noises devoid of contents. Instead, just provide valid and useful counter-information. I do not think you can do that any more than ozan s yigit can, but feel free to change my mind -- I will if you provide different facts. That is the difference between the two of us. /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.