[geeks] Introductory programming language?

[Lionel Peterson]

Mainframe assembler is not hard at all, and it has the happy coincidence of
also teaching you how the hardware actually works, not some abstraction
through a powerful translator...

Computer Learning Center (a technical school, where real people learned how to
code for mainframes with no computer background) used to teach a one month
intro to computers class, a two month COBOL class, a two month 370 Assembler
class and a one month JCL class to their students. They used to alternate
which programming class came first - sometimes you learned COBOL then BAL,
other times you learns BAL then COBOL. They did not see a dramatic difference
between students based on which language you learned first (as I recall)...

APL was, of course, a joke - unless the woman happens to be a mathematician!
;^)

Lionel

On Aug 31, 2011, at 7:15 PM, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:

> Michael Vergallen wrote:
>>> APL? ;^)
>>>
>>> 370 Assembler?
>>>
>> I don4t know but this seems to be just as logical as asking a three year
>> old to do diffential calculations. Assembler is to hard to learn as a
>> first language, for a beginner this would really turn them off the idea
>> of programming.
>
> Bleh.  Mainframe assembler is very different from microcomputer assembler.
>
> Peace...  Sridhar
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