PY> Not at all! But I have an exam tomorrow in misc scripting languages
PY> and need to get a fair overview of perl.
PY> As for the book question: No. That would require us to buy 5-6 books
PY> in this single course. One for perl, one for python, one for bash, one
PY> for tcl and so on. There is no need to be paranoid about doing
PY> someone's homework.
$DIETY help us from scripting overview courses. learn enough in 5 langs
to be dangerous. learn not enough in any to be even functional. i recall
knowing students who took a similar 5 lang in one class (way back when:
something like lisp, algol, apl, etc.) and they didn't know diddly after
the class but how to pass the exams.
when will CS profs learn that overview classes are only good for those
who can learn the langs WITHOUT the class. those who really need to be
taught will never get enough out of each lang to be useful.
now my own experience was different. in one sophomore CS class we did
projects in pdp-11 assembler, algol and lisp. never once were we taught
the languages. many of us either knew them or got the books and self
taught. the class was on programming concepts and not langs and all were
expected to be able to pick up a lang on their own. this is very
different than the overview style of class.
uri