[Discuss] Functional programming @ UVic (was 'C' string tokenizer for those who hate strtok)

[Adam Parkin]

taras wrote:
> No actually George's class coincided with me delving in the wonderful
> world of OCaml. I learned it in CSC340 and laughed when all of my ocaml
> algorithms were 10-20x shorter than people's C/Java versions.

Sorry my mistake, I always assumed it was George's drilling of ML into 
us in 330 that got you started. =8->

> Most academics these days are stuck on OO. Only the smart ones are into
> functional programming :) That's why they don't teach functional
> programming in first year in crappier universities.

Wasn't it UBC that used to have first years learn Lisp before joining 
the trend and going to Java like everywhere else?  I can understand 
leaving Lisp behind ((after all) ((the bracketing) sucks)), but I really 
don't understand the academic obsession with Java that seems so 
prevalent right now.

Often in conversations I have with profs/grad students @ UVic it seems 
like I'm one of the few who thinks that first years should be exposed to 
functional programming.  Not that I think they should go full on into 
closures, higher-order functions, currying and the like, but I 
definitely think there should be exposure to more than just one paradigm 
in first year.  OTOH, people who have taught 110/115 usually look at me 
when I say something like that and go "but learning Java is tough enough 
to fit into two terms, how do you expect them to learn a functional 
language as well?"  And I kind of see this point, but it seems criminal 
to not be exposed to anything other than OO and imperative languages 
until 3rd year, and even then usually only in one class (330).

> For examples of software in ocaml see the Hump
> http://caml.inria.fr/cgi-bin/hump.cgi

Sweet, will check that out.....
--
Adam Parkin
E-mail: pzelnip at telus.net
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