Re: Programming skills required by mathematicians?

Marshall wrote:

> On Jun 25, 12:23 pm, hru...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> 
>>In article
<fd0e8605-ee29-4365-a130-e0baedb3d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>translogi  <wilem...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>>I am still a favourite of old fa****oned Q basic.
>>>I think it is good to know the basics in a simple way.
>>>It maybe slower than C++ but it is easy.
>>>And you can make  very sophisticated programs with it.
>>
>>[...]
>>Computers are essentially a fixed program, the
>>hardware, which then has a small initialized amount
>>of software, quite variable, which enables it to
>>try to do what the user wants.  Keep this in mind;
>>understand what the hardware can do, which is
>>different on different machines, and think in those
>>terms, not the current poorly designed languages.
> 
> Not quite sure what you're saying here. If it's a
> warning against basic, then sure. But thinking
> in terms of specific machine architecture? That's
> virtually never a good idea. Even if you're using
> something antique like plain C, you're still a lot
> better off than you are with assembly or machine
> language. What is "the current poorly designed
> languages" supposed to refer to?

Knowing Herman Rubin a little bit, I just think he feels a bit slippery
here, though he won't admit. H.R. isn't much of a computer minded person
and he'd rather formulate his theoretical considerations on the backside
of an envelope, hand written, I suppose. (Not that I have any objections
against formulas written by hand ..)

Han de Bruijn