Re: Programming skills required by mathematicians?

evw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:

> On Jun 26, 12:49 pm, Frederick Williams
> <frederick.willia...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>>Phil Hobbs wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I agree that C++ is a good choice.
>>
>>You must be joking!
>>
>>
>>>To the list of suggested books,
>>
>>If books are being suggested, then I would recommend two programming
>>books: Meyer's _Object-Oriented Software Construction_ and Ableson and
>>Sussman's _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
> 
> 
> Ah, now we are talking.  Without wanting to start a flame war, do
> consider Lisp.  It is interactive and very efficient for software
> development, has excellent compilers, numerical facilities and
> incor****ates many programming paradigms.  In Common Lisp you have
> CLOS, the most advanced OO-system.  Its notation takes getting used to
> for some, but once you got it, it is exceptionally clear and shows the
> usefulness of program-data equivalence.  Lisp is truly extensible, it
> does not grow old and any expression ever written in it is still
> readable.
> 
> Ernst van Waning
> 
> 
> PS Perhaps some quotes may be helpful?
> 
> "Lisp has jokingly been called 'the most intelligent way to misuse a
> computer'.  I think that description is a great compliment because it
> transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of
> our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible
> thoughts."
> 
> - Edsger W. Dijkstra, CACM, 15:10
> 
> 
> 
> "the greatest single programming language ever designed"
> 
> - Alan Kay, on Lisp
> 
> 
> 
> "Please don't assume Lisp is only useful for Animation and Graphics,
> AI, Bioinformatics, B2B and E-Commerce, Data Mining, EDA/Semiconductor
> applications, Expert Systems, Finance, Intelligent Agents, Knowledge
> Management, Mechanical CAD, Modeling and Simulation, Natural Language,
> Optimization, Research, Risk Analysis, Scheduling, Telecom, and Web
> Authoring just because these are the only things they happened to
> list."
> 
> - Kent M. Pitman

Sure. But suppose you want to DO something with a programming language
and pay main attention to the material, instead of the way how to code
it. That's why my favorite language is Pascal: simple & straighforward.

http://hdebruijn.soo.dto.tudelft.nl/www/programs/delphi.htm

Han de Bruijn