Are you serious? Yes, you are correct about the importance of learning concepts because after all, what good would a language be without concepts to implement them in? However, you are beyond ignorant in your statement that "every single language specific thing you learn is worth nothing more than the fleeting bits used to represent the ascii characters explaining it to you. It's nothing more than syntactic garbage..."
First of all, using your logic, all languages (including assembly languages) are nothing more than syntactic garbage because after all, everything that exists in that language is just something new to remember when we could just get right to the bottom of it and implement the machine code for every instruction set in existence. God forbid we use this syntactic garbage to implement anything.
Now, in reality, what is a language for? It's to make our lives easier. Simple as that. I use C++ over ASM because in all practicality, I don't have the patience to deal with the extra work that is required in ASM because it lacks (and for good reason) some of this so-called syntactic garbage. I use C++ because it is faster to develop practical software in than ASM. Using a higher level language with lots of this so-called syntactic sugar is simply there to allow you to develop more quickly and easily.
Now, as for your medicine example... medicine, chemistry, and the like all have this so-called syntactic garbage. Chemists (and God I hate it so damn much) need to know the electron configuration of all of the elements they work with (and this is also true for biochemists that develop medicine). Chemistry has its own syntactic sugar for writing out electron configurations. [Ne]3s1 is shorthand for 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s1. Chemists aren't going to say "Ok, electron number 1 is exactly at this position, electron number 2 is exactly at this position, etc., etc." They list them out using the syntactic sugar I showed you.
On 3/9/2011 3:54 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:
Man, am I glad medicine sure doesn't work that way. But hey, *smile*, I'm sure doctors would love to not learn anything new, *grin*. This is my personal advice, so take it or leave it. Every single language specific thing you learn is worth nothing more than the fleeting bits used to represent the ascii characters explaining it to you. It is nothing more than syntactic garbage taking up space in your head.. this has been true for the past 60 to 70 years, and it will be true for the next 70 years. That's why you should concentrate on learning concepts. Who cares if you can write a binary tree in C++, if you can't also write it, after only glancing at a reference manual for 10 minutes, in 25 other languages. languages come and go, but concepts hardly change. So, you can either focus and obsess on the 2011 specific stuff, or the stuff that has been true ever since Charles Babbage made his difference engine over a century ago. And for you ladies out there, yes I'm aware that Ada Lovelace actually did all the hard work, *grin*. Take care, Sina Take care, Sina -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alex Midence Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 6:48 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the language Well, I'm glad the language has held still over the years. I'm stil a novice in this language and I'm glad I don't have to be so worried about my book or tutorial containing obselete code as I would be for Java. You can still take a c++ book written in 2004 or 2005 or something like that and use it to learn with. Unless I'm mistaken, you can't do this with c# or Java. I tried looking at Java a few months back and kept finding all these books that seemed to have a bunch of things you had to change with subsequent versions of Java. So, I for one am glad too much change hasn't come too quickly to it. Alex M On 3/9/11, Sina Bahram<sbahram@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:Fine, seriously belated, delayed, and not as useful as it would have been 10 years ago. Take car,e Sina -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Littlefield, Tyler Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 6:39 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the language But it wasn't. This is a long time in coming, but it doesn't make it useless. On 3/9/2011 3:41 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:Wow, how many decades has it been? Oh well, better later than never, or something, I'm sure. Sorry, this is kind of useless. This should have been done in 1999. Take care, Sina -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alex Midence Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 5:17 PM To: programmingblind Subject: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the language http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/C++0x%20-%20An%20Overview.html Fascinating video from the man himself. Interesting to hear his voice. For those who don't know, Bjarne Stroustrup is the man who invented c++. The language was originally called c with classes but then, he changed the name to c++ because in c, the ++ means incremental addition. Enjoy, Alex M __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind-- Thanks, Ty __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
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