[rescue] flamewar question: Perl

[Greg]

> An Intro. programming class based on Ada? What was that, drinking from a firehose
> state U or something? ;^)

At the time the US government declared Ada to be the _one_ programming
language.  So the University thought it was a good idea to use it.
Don't worry, the nightmares stopped a few years ago; the scars don't seem
to have been permanent.

> I could describe C in a 50 page document myself - does that make scheme and C equal
> on some level?

Hardly, as I said: knowing what I know now (!), I really wish I had learned
Scheme much earlier even though I'm basically a C programmer and don't like
languages with lots of parenthesis.  There's something almost magical about
learning real problem-solving-programming in Scheme, though.  I also said it
tends not to be a practical language to make money with, just a way to learn
to be a better overall programmer.

Bill wrote:
> And I cant think of a single reason to *ever* learn the following languages:
>
> Scheme

Learning the language might not be the end but rather the means to an end.
Being a Lisp or Scheme programmer might not be interesting but the journey
is rewarding and will make you a better programmer in the language of your
choice.

Bill continued his list:
> Lisp

It's obvious that the one reason to know Lisp is Emacs. You do use Emacs,
right? ;-)

-greg