I have no programming experience. Would you recommend C?

[Malcolm McLean]

MM> Would a young man be rejected for a computer science type
MM> course at MIT, and apply to Harvard with a reasonable
MM> expectation of success? What about the other way round?

Much depends on why. Generally at Ivy League schools one simply
applies for the undergraduate degree, and selects the degree course
later -- so your young man rejected at Harvard would be rejected in
general, not just for the computer science degree.

Both Harvard and MIT are extremely selective, but they select for
different things; someone who doesn't have the technical education (or
the visible potential thereof) to be accepted at MIT might have other
qualifications that Harvard is looking for. In neither case is
admission entirely objective; it's possible for a borderline candidate
to be accepted or rejected based on things like family history with
the school, athletic accomplishment, or odd hobbies.

Practically speaking, as I understand it, Harvard and MIT allow
cross-enrollment, so you you can be a student at MIT and take classes
at Harvard, or vice versa.

It's a rather different system to ours.
Apart from a handful of courses, Oxbridge is best at everything. Ypu apply
for a specific course. If you get rejected by Oxford you apply somewhere
like Durham. If you were at all a serious candidate, you are guaranteed at
least a good red brick. Of course lots of people get rejected by the red
bricks and settle for the 60s universities.

If you go Oxford Brookes University you can join the vast majority of social
activities; the Oxford Union is open to all univeristy students in the city
of Oxford, for example, but you cannot normally take courses at Oxford
University.

 

[Chris Hills]

CH> Why would anyone know about the in's and outs of some forigen
CH> education system. I bet Charlton knows bugger all about the
CH> European Universities.

CH> So Charlton what is a Red Brick Uni?

Don't know;

So why should I know about "ivy league"?

but I would hope that if I got on a high horse and
dismissed them all offhandedly and incorrectly, someone would step up
and smack me.
Charlton

You stated the they were the "best circles" with as you have said a lack
of knowledge of the real best circles. You were duly smacked down.

 

[Malcolm McLean]

You stated the they were the "best circles" with as you have said a lack
of knowledge of the real best circles. You were duly smacked down.

Time to stop messing about:

From Harvard's website
"Some of the key advances in CS happened at Harvard, including the
development of the Mark computers, the invention of the COBOL programming
language, the development of the APL programming language, the founding of
computer graphics, the creation of the Information Dispersal Algorithm, the
development of the PAC model for computational learning, the establishment
of one of the first full-featured CS curriculums, and the creation the first
Microsoft product, BASIC."

Very few universities could match those achievements. Whether a handful of
other institutions might just have the edge on some narrow definition of
excellence, in the narrow area of computer science, is maybe open to
dispute. There are other excellent places to learn programming. However
Harvard is generally acknowledged to be the best university in the world,
and by quite some way.

Of course they don't specialise in churing out people who can write front
ends to stock control systems in Visual Basic. If that is what you value,
then you won't value a Harvard education.

 

[Chris Hills]

Time to stop messing about:

From Harvard's website
"Some of the key advances in CS happened at Harvard, including the
development of the Mark computers, the invention of the COBOL programming
language, the development of the APL programming language, the founding of
computer graphics, the creation of the Information Dispersal Algorithm, the
development of the PAC model for computational learning, the establishment
of one of the first full-featured CS curriculums, and the creation the first
Microsoft product, BASIC."

Very few universities could match those achievements.

Manchester can.

 

[Chris Hills]

Time to stop messing about:

From Harvard's website
"Some of the key advances in CS happened at Harvard, including the
development of the Mark computers,

Which computers?

the invention of the COBOL programming
language,

Ok that one is still around.

the development of the APL programming language,

Most universities have developed languages like APL that have come and
gone into extremely small niche areas or died out

the founding of
computer graphics,

I don't think that will stand up

the creation of the Information Dispersal Algorithm,

Fair enough

the
development of the PAC model for computational learning,

Most have their own schemes.

the establishment
of one of the first full-featured CS curriculums,

They all claim that

and the creation the first
Microsoft product, BASIC."

And... BASIC was not invented there....

Very few universities could match those achievements.

Many could match and quite a lot surpass them.

Whether a handful of
other institutions might just have the edge on some narrow definition of
excellence, in the narrow area of computer science, is maybe open to
dispute.

MANY institutes could surpass that record in many areas. Your
knowledge of Universities seems very sparse.

There are other excellent places to learn programming. However
Harvard is generally acknowledged to be the best university in the world,
and by quite some way.

This is the American problem they have a VERY narrow view, usually
limited to a part of the US. They assume becuae it is big where they
are it is BIG. You are a large fish in a small pond. When you swim in
the world wide pond you will find that whilst Harvard is one of the
better universities it is by no means the best.

Of course they don't specialise in churing out people who can write front
ends to stock control systems in Visual Basic. If that is what you value,
then you won't value a Harvard education.

Most of my work is in high integrity systems, embedded systems etc. I
have worked on many systems and several languages but only once had to
use BASIC on a commercial system.

 

[Malcolm McLean]

This is the American problem they have a VERY narrow view, usually limited
to a part of the US. They assume becuae it is big where they are it is
BIG. You are a large fish in a small pond. When you swim in the world
wide pond you will find that whilst Harvard is one of the better
universities it is by no means the best.

Most of my work is in high integrity systems, embedded systems etc. I have
worked on many systems and several languages but only once had to use
BASIC on a commercial system.

I am not a Harvard alumnus so I've no real interest in defending their
reputation. But don't dis BASIC.

It is a fantastic language, particularly in my implementation, showcased in
BASICdraw. I am considering whether to add subroutines for the next release.

http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

Seriously I need suggestions on what the program is actually good for and
how to make it better. I'm convinced that there is such a big body of rusty
1980s BASIC programmers out there that there must be an application for it.

 

[Flash Gordon]

Malcolm McLean wrote, On 27/01/07 20:35:

I am not a Harvard alumnus so I've no real interest in defending their
reputation. But don't dis BASIC.

Basics which actually have support for vaguely modern (i.e. at least
methods older than me) programming methodologies, possibly. Certainly
ones that have procedures, multi-line if-then-else, more looping
constructs than just for loops...

It is a fantastic language, particularly in my implementation, showcased in
BASICdraw. I am considering whether to add subroutines for the next release.

Having graphics primitives does not make it great. I can use a
third-party library and have such things in any language of my choosing.
Adding subroutines as opposed to something more modern also would not
bring it up to the level of good, let alone great.

http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

Please take adverts for things nothing to do with this group somewhere
they might be topical. At least Jacob is talking about a C compiler when
he pushes his on this group!

Seriously I need suggestions on what the program is actually good for and
how to make it better. I'm convinced that there is such a big body of rusty
1980s BASIC programmers out there that there must be an application for it.

If you want to go advocating Basic take is somewhere that Basic (or
general pushing of the language of your choice) might be topical.

Basic is still used in some applications (or was 7 years ago) but the
only ones I know of it is because that was the language chosen by
someone in either the 70s or early 80s. It was probably chosen because
the machine the work was done on came with Basic!

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...


And... BASIC was not invented there....

IIRC Basic came from the University of New Hampshire.

--
<http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>

"A man who is right every time is not likely to do very much."
-- Francis Crick, co-discover of DNA
"There is nothing more amazing than stupidity in action."
-- Thomas Matthews

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Malcolm McLean said:

"Chris Hills" <[email protected]> wrote in message
I am not a Harvard alumnus so I've no real interest in defending their
reputation. But don't dis BASIC.

I don't think he was dissing it. But anyway it wasn't claimed that Harvard
invented BASIC. The claim was only that Microsoft's implementation of it
was written there. BASIC itself was invented at Dartmouth College, I
believe, by Kemeny and Kurtz.

It is a fantastic language, particularly in my implementation, showcased
in BASICdraw. I am considering whether to add subroutines for the next
release.

http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

Seriously I need suggestions on what the program is actually good for and
how to make it better.

I went to have a look. Presumably the .exe extension means it's for MS-DOS
or Microsoft Windows. And no source, so even if I were using Windows I'd
have to trust the program. Oh well, so much for that idea.

 

[CBFalconer]

Chris Hills wrote:

... snip ...

IIRC Basic came from the University of New Hampshire.

Correction: Dartmouth. Same state.

 

[santosh]

Malcolm McLean said:

I went to have a look. Presumably the .exe extension means it's for MS-DOS
or Microsoft Windows. And no source, so even if I were using Windows I'd
have to trust the program. Oh well, so much for that idea.

FWIW, he does provide the source code, (in C), for MiniBASIC, over
which, apparently, BasicDRAW adds a few extra statements.

<http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm/Minibasic/MiniBasicHome.html>
<http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm/BASICdrawcommands.html>

 

[Charlton Wilbur]

CH> In article <[email protected]>, Charlton

CH> So Charlton what is a Red Brick Uni?
CH> So why should I know about "ivy league"?

Because you're the one dismissing them with statements like "I thought
they were all business orientated."

CH> You stated the they were the "best circles" with as you have
CH> said a lack of knowledge of the real best circles. You were
CH> duly smacked down.

Nope, not I. When you apply a smack down, be sure it is to the
correct person.

Charlton

 

[Malcolm McLean]

Malcolm McLean said:

I don't think he was dissing it. But anyway it wasn't claimed that Harvard
invented BASIC. The claim was only that Microsoft's implementation of it
was written there. BASIC itself was invented at Dartmouth College, I
believe, by Kemeny and Kurtz.

Chris Hills disses everything. Harvard, me, Oberon. Now Basic.
I am Basic implementor, so I will defend my language against these attacks.

I went to have a look. Presumably the .exe extension means it's for MS-DOS
or Microsoft Windows. And no source, so even if I were using Windows I'd
have to trust the program. Oh well, so much for that idea.

I know. It is completely irritating. I was going to release the source but
someone threatened to strip out the Basic and replace it with Ruby
interpreter. The whole point of the program is to show off the BASIC
interpeter in all its glory, so I couldn't let that happen.

Maybe I should have written it in Java?

 

[santosh]

Chris Hills disses everything. Harvard, me, Oberon. Now Basic.
I am Basic implementor, so I will defend my language against these attacks.
I know. It is completely irritating. I was going to release the source but
someone threatened to strip out the Basic and replace it with Ruby
interpreter. The whole point of the program is to show off the BASIC
interpeter in all its glory, so I couldn't let that happen.

Why not realease the source under a no modification license. Even if
somebody does do what you're saying, the original will always be
available at your site.

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

I know. It is completely irritating. I was going to release the
source but someone threatened to strip out the Basic and replace it
with Ruby interpreter. The whole point of the program is to show
off the BASIC interpeter in all its glory, so I couldn't let that
happen.

Maybe I should have written it in Java?

If it was it would be totally OT here. As it is it has a slight
chance of surviving

I wouldn't worry about it. You can retain the copyright and
release it under GPL. You can always add the condition that
modified version can only be released under a new name, and must
acknowledge their origin. People tend to leave the modifications
up to the originator until he abandons it. Under GPL, if
worthwhile, it survives in other hands.

 

[Chris Hills]

Chris Hills disses everything.

Nope. Wrong there.

Harvard,

Only as "the best" CS Uni in the world.
It is surpassed in that field by many others.
It is good for business though

me,

Not personally.

Oberon.

Never have. Damned good language with bugger all in the way of tools and
support. So probably of very little use for a beginner. There are a
whole list of very good languages that never caught on.

Now Basic.

Nope... I said I had only used it once commercially. I mainly use c
(which is a complete bag of nails)

I am Basic implementor, so I will defend my language against these attacks.

Not clever. You need common sense not an emotive "defence". I was not
attacking BASIC anyway some one lese inthis thread was.

I know. It is completely irritating. I was going to release the source but
someone threatened to strip out the Basic and replace it with Ruby
interpreter. The whole point of the program is to show off the BASIC
interpeter in all its glory, so I couldn't let that happen.

The tools for many languages are written in a different language.
However I understand that you want to write it in BASIC. Why wouild
some one want to re-write it in Ruby? Would it make any difference?
Those who want to do basic would probably stil want the one in written
in basic with the source

 

[Chris Hills]

CH> In article <[email protected]>, Charlton

CH> So Charlton what is a Red Brick Uni?

CH> So why should I know about "ivy league"?

Because you're the one dismissing them with statements like "I thought
they were all business orientated."

Well they are. They are well known for their business strengths.

Havard is certainly not "the best" for CS, even in the US and you SHOULD
know about Red Brick Unis if you are claiming to know who the best are
else you don't have enough information to make a judgement about the
best.

 

[Malcolm McLean]

Havard is certainly not "the best" for CS, even in the US and you SHOULD
know about Red Brick Unis if you are claiming to know who the best are
else you don't have enough information to make a judgement about the best.

I was invited to Harvard once. We were looking at ways of modelling
metabolic networks in crop plants. My host was a genetic engineer trying to
improve grape yields.
I have to say he didn't know the first thing about metabolic modelling. He
had overexpressed a gene that caused sugar to be deposited in the berries,
but he had completely failed to realise that he needed to upregulate the
protection against oxidative stress. The result was that acetic acid
accumulated in his fruits.

 

[Keith Thompson]

I wouldn't worry about it. You can retain the copyright and
release it under GPL. You can always add the condition that
modified version can only be released under a new name, and must
acknowledge their origin. People tend to leave the modifications
up to the originator until he abandons it. Under GPL, if
worthwhile, it survives in other hands.

I don't know whether the GPL allows that kind of restriction.
(Note: I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying I don't know.)

 

[CBFalconer]

I don't know whether the GPL allows that kind of restriction.
(Note: I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying I don't know.)

It's up to the copyright holder what conditions he licenses under.
If he says GPL, with the following added restriction, that is his
business. He isn't modifying GPL, just adding a condition for his
software alone. I don't see any problem.