Re: programing with science jobs


"Randy Poe" <poespam-trap@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1194878363.878783.144070@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
: On Nov 12, 7:16 am, jmfbah...@xxxxxxx wrote:
: > In article <b52k05-n5h....@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wrote:
: > >hhc...@xxxxxxxxx <hhc...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
: >
: > ><snip Androcrap>
: >
: > >> Damn, get a clue. The poster that we are responsing to has not yet
: > >> even graduated from highschool!
: > >> Give the kid a break.
: >
: > >> He asked a serious questions regarding his future programming needs
: > >> for studies in physics, math, and engineering, and I answered him to
: > >> the best of my ability and related experience. I stopped short of
: > >> telling him that a slide rule is a basic need during his college
exams
: > >> (much faster and less confusing than using a calculator).
: >
: > >I should hope not since they are now collector's items.
: >
: > They are? Doesn't anybody manufacture them? I wanted to get
: > a circular one and learn how to use it.
: >
: >
: >
: > ><snip>
: >
: > >> The bottom line question is: Does anyone here belive that a knowledge
: > >> of assembly language, 'C', Fortran and BASIC programming could be a
: > >> disadvantage or and advantege to this future college student? Let's
: > >> have a show of hands.
: >
: > >It would be almost impossible to be any sort of scientist or engineer
: > >and not do some programming these days.
: >
: > >It would also be highly unlikely that one can get through any
: > >technical course in college without doing some programming.
: >
: > I would recommend to take a good intro course where the prof is
: > a crusty old PITA and believes that the kids need to learn how
: > computers don't add.
: >
: >
: >
: >
: >
: > >> Finally, everyone puts down BASIC as being unsophisticated, which to
: > >> me simply means that it it is being put down because anyone can,
: > >> without a lot of programming education, wite a simple basic program.
I
: > >> tend to like it for simple, non-real-time, computations. Then too,
you
: > >> can download BASIC for free, and it will run on just about every
: > >> computer. As a freshman physics or math sudent, it would be my first
: > >> choice.
: >
: > >BASIC is unsophisticated because one of the reasons it was invented
: > >was to teach programming fundamentals and it is quite good for that
: > >as well as simple problem solving.
: >
: > >C is a lot more common for real world problems and simple to learn
: > >once you learn the basics using BASIC.
: >
: > >Fortran and assembly aren't widely used anymore, but if the kid goes
: > >into one of those fields where they are used, both are pretty simple
: > >to learn if you've gone the BASIC to C route.
: >
: > There is still lots of FORTRAN code out there (I don't know about
: > Fortran). Being able to read it and get an idea of what the code
: > does (rather than reading comments which are always not quite correct)
: > is a good idea.
:
: Not a whole lot of call to run it, but certainly a lot of
: need to read it, especially if you are involved in numerical
: calculations. A lot of classic code was written in FORTRAN.
: Just last year I was adapting some navigation algorithms
: from FORTRAN to C and Matlab.
:
: > I guess if you know BASIC you can figure out a
: > FORTRAN program ...and visa versa.
:
: I remember a couple of pronouncements from Djikstra
: about that subject (prior to the introduction of C, I
: believe). One was that he didn't know what the programming
: language of the next century would be, but it would
: probably be called "FORTRAN". The other was that
: anybody who started their programming in BASIC was
: brain-damaged for life.

Oh, is that what you did?
I started my programming in "flow chart" and had a little
green stencil to draw them with. A friend of mine started
his programming in Braille but made a lot of syntax errors
when he tried to translate them into Roman capitals, not
having a Braille monitor. He was eye-damaged for life.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: programing with science jobs
    ... and not do some programming these days. ... As a freshman physics or math sudent, ... once you learn the basics using BASIC. ... There is still lots of FORTRAN code out there (I don't know about ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: A petition to J3 apropos FORTRANs future
    ... >> web programming, GUI development, and text analysis. ... >> may partially explain the small market share of Fortran. ... almost NO new code would be written in the language. ... time on the types of codes that scientists and engineers want and need to ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: OT Registry cleaners
    ... COBOL is a read only language. ... What we need is a perl to COBOL translator. ... "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students ... the BASICs of today aren't comparable to the basics of ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Flamewar _ DO NOT READ
    ... Without having to buy expensive development kits ... ... I think the point you were trying to make, and it may be a valid one, is that it's one of the last that comes with a programming environment *that's designed for ease of learning by beginning programmers*. ... BASICs, Logo, Smalltalks, and some of the Lisp derivatives provide that, and of those, Logo and some of the BASICs and Smalltalks are relatively easy to learn too. ... More commonly, it's the shell, Explorer, that gets into a wonky state and needs restarting, but you lose all your open-folder-window session state if you restart Explorer in any other way than by rebooting. ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.angband)
  • Re: With all do respect Gentlemen
    ... I have always been told that the only stupid question is the one you ... 1984 I started programming on my first IBM PC ... IT's not that your questions are stupid, it's that you obviously haven't even bothered looking at the manual to discover the very basics. ... If you really did teach yourself all those languages, then you should be at least starting with this one by making an effort to discover the very basic steps, before asking for help. ...
    (comp.lang.php)