[Edu-sig] Re: important programming languages

[Frank Stajano]

At 2000-12-11 09:13 -0800, Kirby Urner wrote:
>When it comes to learning programming, I agree that Python
>provides a clean, well-designed syntax.  So even though
>pure Python source code would be too slow for most practical
>crypto applications, you might usefully learn the guts of
>an algorithm that way -- knowledge you could then transfer
>to another language (even Assembler).

I could not agree more. A one-page paper in the IPC7 proceedings ( 
http://www.foretec.com/python/workshops/1998-11/proceedings/posters/stajano/serpent.html
  ) tells of my experience implementing Serpent in Python and thereby 
writing the first ever correct implementation of it. From that I then 
rewrote the reference implementation in C.

Serpent was one of the Advanced Encryption Standard candidate ciphers, 
which was chosen as one of the 5 finalists and got the second highest score 
from attendees' votes at the latest AES conference, beaten only by Rijndael 
that eventually won the title.



  Frank (filologo disneyano)  http://www.uk.research.att.com/~fms/