3 Jan
2012
3 Jan
'12
5:27 p.m.
Since modelling and abstraction are far more important
parts of
"programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely:
[...]
- numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? How do I build
anything else? Oh right. I can't.
If you think you can't, you need to learn to program. Just because the
language doesn't help you do something doesn't mean it can't be done.
I have only
read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually
impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences,
And that is
EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't
relevant to
programming. [...]
I didn't write the double-quoted text above. But the conclusion _I_
come to is that Scheme is not suitable for a beginner. (Well, most
beginners.)
But in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what
you have been
indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really
going on when you program.
Sounds as though you've been so indoctrinated that you think it can't
be programming if it isn't...I don't know, written in a Lisp dialect?
Functional? Full of parentheses?
Nobody really knows what is going on when someone programs; the process
of converting a problem to a program to solve it is a very difficult
one to understand, like most creative processes. To presume that _you_
know better than _someone else_ what is going on when that someone else
programs is...ludicrous. Not to mention jaw-droppingly arrogant.
Programs are not "sequences of instructions"
except at the absolute
bottom-most level.
I've got news for you: programs in most language inherently are
sequences of instructions at more than just the machine-code level.
We do not need *another* generation of programmers for
whom recursion
and higher-order functions are alien concepts.
You appear to think recursion and higher-order functions are somehow
not sequences of instructions. If so, I think you're wrong.
"(apply fn args)" is just as much an "instruction" as "a[i] =
0;" is.
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