Even Older Man Yells At Whippersnappers
Rhodri James
rhodri at kynesim.co.uk
Tue Sep 19 12:12:40 EDT 2017
On 19/09/17 16:59, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2017-09-19, Rhodri James <rhodri at kynesim.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 19/09/17 16:00, Stefan Ram wrote:
>>> D'Arcy Cain <darcy at VybeNetworks.com> writes:
>>>> of course, I use calculators and computers but I still understand the
>>>> theory behind what I am doing.
>>>
>>> I started out programming in BASIC. Today, I use Python,
>>> the BASIC of the 21st century. Python has no GOTO, but when
>>> it is executed, its for loop eventually is implemented using
>>> a GOTO-like jump instruction. Thanks to my learning of BASIC,
>>> /I/ can have this insight. Younger people, who never learned
>>> GOTO, may still be able to use Python, but they will not
>>> understand what is going on behind the curtains. Therefore, for
>>> a profound understanding of Python, everyone should learn BASIC
>>> first, just like I did!
>>
>> Tsk. You should have learned (a fake simplified) assembler first, then
>> you'd have an appreciation of what your processor actually did.
>>
>> :-)
>
> Tsk, Tsk. Before learning assembly, you should design an instruction
> set and implement it in hardare. Or at least run in in a VHDL
> simulator. [Actually, back in my undergrad days we used AHPL and
> implemented something like a simplified PDP-11 ISA.]
<yorkshireman>
Eh, my school never 'ad an electronics class, nor a computer neither.
Made programming a bit tricky; we 'ad to write programs on a form and
send 'em off to next county. None of this new-fangled VHDL neither, we
'ad to do our simulations with paper and pencil.
</yorkshireman>
(All true, as it happens. My school acquired a computer (just the one:
a NorthStar Horizon) in my O-Level year, but before that we really did
have to send programs off to Worcester where someone would laboriously
type them in for you. A week later you got a print out of the results
and a roll of paper tape with your program on it.)
--
Rhodri James *-* Kynesim Ltd
More information about the Python-list
mailing list