Re: Sort of embarrassed to ask such a simple question

"phil chastney" <phil.maybe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote in message news:de9glj$5cq$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Björn Helgason" <gosinn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1124537462.881290.130130@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> In the APL community in general I think we tend to not pay too much
>> attention to the newbies
>>
>> We assume certain level of knowledge from every user and forget about
>> the initial hassle of getting into our wonderful world of APL
>>
>> There is an initial barrier and those who do cross it can have years
>> of happiness waiting for them
>>
>> Those who are not lucky enough just leave before they understand what
>> it is all about
>>
>> The majority of those trying their first steps into APL never make it
>> over that initial barrier
>>
>> I am not saying I have a solution to this problem but other computer
>> languages do not seem to have that same barrier
>>
>> I always thought it was just the funny greek characters but it is
>> deeper than that
>
> I knew a guy who taught digital electronics to experienced analogue
> circuit designers -- he reckoned that the first day would separate
> those who could make the change from those who never would
>
> I've had similar experiences teaching APL and SQL -- the best new
> APLer was a secretary, who had absolutely no difficulty conceptualizing
> a 4-D slice through a 6-D array -- the best new SQLer was a
> refinishing spray-paint expert, who was hooking up 4-way inner products
> within an hour or two of being introduced to the topic
>
> some people can (in some sense) "visualize" large chunks of data, and
> operations on them, and some people can't -- the latter group have to
> revert to one-bit-at-a-time scalar-processing languages
>
> there may be something in Djikstra's assertion that these things damage
> your intellect -- I showed a mixed class of accountants and
> statisticians how
> JAN + FEB + MAR
> gave you the first quarter's totals, which the accountants thought was
> quite reasonable (and were disappointingly under-impressed), while the
> statisticians (thanks to their experience with Fortran) had a real
> problem figuring out how to set up the required loops
>
> of course. some people are not mentally well-suited to either
> scalar-processing or array-processing languages -- I recall the
> student who wrote
> Y = X + 2
> X = 3
> and could not understand why Y did not now have the value 5 --
> clearly, he was thinking of the first assignment as a declarative, and
> was not happy with the idea of the computer "obeying" the instruction
> just once, and then forgetting about it
>
> different people have different mindsets -- whether these mindsets are
> innate or acquired is not a topic I would hazard an opinion on
>
> regards . . . /phil

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At one time, about 1960, programming was introduced, even before "hello
world" by a physical analog. A bunch of pigeon hole boxes- some with
instructions and others empty.
Look in the first box- do what it says. look in the next box - do what it
says ... and what it says in each box might be of the form>
Box 1:Take the number in box 10
Box 2: Put it in box 6
Box3: Take the number in box 11
Box 4: add it to the number in box 6
Box 5:send the result to the printer
Box6: Oh ***- how can I read this number as an instruction. Program
error!!

This, at least, got the idea across that programming was like setting up a
schedule for a idiot to follow. It was quite clear then - with punch
cards - the consequences of a missing oer out of order card were quickly
apparent.
APL got by some of the man made idiocities of previous languages (as the
internal structure could handle these things) making the job to be
programmed more important than the more tedious details of programming
allowing one to think more about the job to be done rather than the
programming structure. This is also a disadvantage as there is a temptation
to write (at least once, for the hell of it) elegant but incomprehensible
recursive one-liners.
--

Don Kelly @shawcross.ca
remove the X to answer
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