RE: How about in INC opcode(how important is syntax in the learni ng curve?)

[Joel Fritz <JFritz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think it's a semantic issue and that I wasn't completly clear on what I
meant.  

First, I should have said grammar and syntax.  

Second, my Whorf-Sapir analogy was that the grammar and syntax of a computer
language are products of the underlying concepts and provide a way to make
inferences about the underlying concepts of the language.  I don't think you
can really use the syntax correctly unless you understand the underlying
concepts, and I think that understanding the syntax well should lead to a
better understanding of the underlying concepts.


In a procedural language when you want to print something you invoke the
print verb in some way or other.  In an object oriented language you invoke
the print method of the object you want to print, or you get some sort of
information(message) from an object and pass the results of that to the
printing object.  To me this is a matter of grammar and syntax, but I can
easily see how someone else wouldn't see it that way.  I think it's possible
to talk about inheritance and polymorphism from this point of view too, but
it's getting a little late in the day for me for abstraction.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: boldt@ca.ibm.com [mailto:boldt@ca.ibm.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 11:14 AM
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: RE: How about in INC opcode(how important is syntax in the
> learni ng curve?)
> 

/*                       Big Snip                                         */
> 
> 
> 
> But, other more powerful languages have other conceptual
> hurdles.  Object-orientation is clearly a big hurdle for
> languages like C++, Java, and Perl.  Knowledge and experience
> in a procedural language usually offers little help and often
> hinders mastery of OO.  Furthermore, effective use of Java
> also means mastery of a massive library of predefined classes.
> And effective use of Perl normally requires mastering regular
> expressions.  Clearly (at least to me), learning one of these
> languages requires more than just learning a new syntax.
> 
> Cheers!  Hans
> 
> Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com
> 
> 
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