On 3 Jan 2012 at 9:59, Vintage Coder wrote:
Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years
of Java
programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than
assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-)
Anyway this ought to be an interesting subthread. I'll make the
popcorn!
All computer languages, including assembly, are merely lexical
conveniences for working with the machine language of any given
computer. They serve two purposes:
1. They provide portability between architectures, to some extent,
but very few languages actually reflect the architecture of the
hardware they run on. Someone, at some time, has to make a decision
as to what machine code a statement will generate.
2. They are inventions to relieve the human mind cope with the
fragilities of its memory and the inability to keep track of many
things, as well as the human inability to do accurate arithmetic.
So go out and invent your own language! They're all just mind games--
.and it's pointless to argue about them. Institutions would like to
standardize on one, but like all human language, that's not likely to
happen.
As far as teaching, no language that I'm aware of teaches the
fundamentals of how a computer operates.
--Chuck