ftp.cs.arizona.edu/ftp.cs.arizona.edu.tar/ftp.cs.arizona.edu/icon/newsgrp/group93b.txt/000054_icon-group-sender _Mon May 3 22:59:19 1993.msg

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-16 | 4KB

Received: by cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu; Tue, 4 May 1993 05:06:01 MST
Date: Mon, 3 May 93 22:59:19 -0400
From: isidev![e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
To: uunet!cs.arizona.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Icon as intro CS
Status: R
Errors-To: [e-mail]

 > lots of stuff you can get from...
 >
 >   Subject: Re: runtime debugger and the Icon fan club.
 >   Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
 >   References: <[e-mail]>
 >
 > >What are the curriculum goals of a CS education?  What are
 > >the education goals of a non CS education.
 >
 > For a humanities programmer the goals are exactly the same as for a CS
 > programmer.  The only difference is that the actual content of 3 above.
 > At least this has been my *personal* experience.
 >
 > >Does Icon support the CS needs of a non-CS education?
 >
 > I can't honestly say I know until I've had the chance to teach a few
 > introductory humanities programming courses, which I doubt I'll get to
 > do, seeing as my degree is in Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations :-).
 >
 > Interesting comments you make, though.

I have been doing CSish stuff for a number of years now but my introduction
to programming had to do with Fish stuff.  I was a student in a fisheries
class with gobs of red horse (a species of sucker) tissue samples to
analyze for traces of pesticide and fertilizer contamination.  We had trays
and trays of cards punched with the data from gas chromatograph runs, and
the state of the art analysis method was students with scientific
calculators.  Being basically a lazy person (in the best possible way :-) I
took a course in FORTRAN to allow me to whip through the data.  I actually
liked this computer stuff, and could actually find a job with it, so it
stuck.

The point is, different people learn programming for different reasons.  I
would contend that the majority of people who could benefit from knowing
how to program are NOT CS types.  They are scientists in humanities or
biology or agriculture or sociology - disciplines with lots of data that
doesn't necessarily fit the pigeon holes provided by commercial databases
and spreadsheets or even some of the scientific analysis packages available
commercially.

Icon makes a great language for these programmers because it does numbers
and text and combinations of the two.  It's simple to program on a basic
(pun intended) level and once you get hooked you can do some amazing
things.  Once a programmer learns what a computer can do for them they can
look at the other tools available and if needed add other languages to
their repertoire.

For non-CS programmers I can't see anything with advantages over Icon.  The
non-CS programmer is not as likely to be hung up on declaring all their
variables or knowing how big their arrays or strings will be ahead of time
or what type their data will be every time around.  Icon is a "what if"
kind of language.  The speed of the interpreter encourages programmers to
try things that languages like C or C++ make a royal pain.  You get so many
interesting Icon programs because the quickness of the interpreter fairly
shouts "just because it works now, doesn't mean you have to quit playing
with it."

Only a very narrow mind looks at a bouquet of spring flowers and tries to
decide which is more lovely, the tulip or the daffodil.  Icon is one of the
beautiful languages.  It can stand alone or complement other languages in a
medley of programming tools.  Sorry if I run on...I love Icon and just wish
everyone could see the beauty and elegance in it.

--- ---
 | S |  Iconic Software, Inc.  -  Jerry Nowlin  -  uunet!isidev!nowlin
--- ---