Subj : Re: RIP Niklaus Wirth
To   : tenser
From : Dr. What
Date : Mon Jan 08 2024 08:05:19

-=> tenser wrote to Dr. What <=-

 te> It was always easy to pick out the kids who'd been
 te> exposed to COBOL and then learned C; their C code
 te> tended to be overly verbose and not terribly idiomatic.
 te> It'd take them a good while to come up to speed.

For me, the "tell" was no local variables and functions had a huge number of
parameters and sub-functions.  But I think that goes with the "not terribly
idiomatic" category.

Did you know that 'lint' crashes if you have too many local variables?
I didn't until I had to run some C-COBOL through it.

 te> The ones who came from BASIC had it the worst, though.

It depends, but you're mostly right.

I learned BASIC on my own.  But by the end of High School, I had already
"discovered" Structured Programming (before I even knew who Edsger Dijkstra
was), using GOSUB and minimizing GOTOs.  Commodore BASIC didn't have WHILE/WEND
loops until much later.


.... Debrief:  Wife listening while you talk in your sleep.
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