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Guilty!
...the programming language you think in shapes the algorithm choice and therefore affects both how you think about a problem and how you solve it - that?s why COBOL programmers working in Perl usually just write COBOL using Perl notation.

This is very true. When I first started programming in Perl, I simply wrote shell scripts in Perl notation. Then I started "thinking in Perl" and now when I find myself needing to use C# or some other programming tool, I often ask myself, "How would I do this in Perl?" I then try to mimic that in the language du jour.

Mark Jason Dominus makes a very good point in Higher Order Perl. He mentions that many Perl programmers are also C/C++ programmers. Frequently, these programmers simply write C programs in Perl, ostensibly to take advantage of Perl's strengths, like text processing. He points out that Perl has more in common with Lisp than most people realize and that there's a lot to be said for learning how to think in terms of Perl. (The book can be read online: http://hop.perl.plover.com/)

I suppose the same goes for other high-level languages, be they "scripting" languages or "real" languages. The advice that I am trying to apply in my own case when studying a new programming language is to learn more than just the syntax. I want to learn the philosophy of the language - why the language does what it does. (e.g there's a book, The Ruby Way, which seems to delve into both the what and the why when it comes to Ruby.)

What do you programmers out there do to keep from yourselves from writing the proverbial COBOL program in Perl? What helps you think beyond the philosophies and idioms of your favorite programming language?

-MC
Posted by: Mercutio_Viz   Posted on: 06/05/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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Guilty!  Mercutio_Viz | 06/05/07
Conceptual training  bportlock | 06/05/07
I know a guy who closes lights  murph_z ZDNet Moderator | 06/05/07
Natural languages  jorwell | 06/05/07
Words yes, sentences no  Roger Ramjet | 06/05/07
The deep grammatical structure is the same  jorwell | 06/05/07
We are all the same ...  bportlock | 06/05/07
Thanks to Djistra  Roger Ramjet | 06/05/07
The book "Structured Programming" ....  bportlock | 06/05/07
You've got it...  Erik Engbrecht | 06/05/07
Would you have thought of using it though?  Mark Miller | 06/06/07
The associative array is exactly equivalent to an ISAM file  jorwell | 06/05/07
The Perl version will be slower too  jorwell | 06/05/07
The thing about COBOL....  bportlock | 06/05/07
Many people don't like to dirty their hands with business  jorwell | 06/05/07
You're joking, right?  murph_z ZDNet Moderator | 06/05/07
Of course not  jorwell | 06/05/07
Bon Voyage  blinddog | 06/05/07
Thanks!  murph_z ZDNet Moderator | 06/05/07
FORTRAN  rapson | 06/05/07
There's an old joke...  bportlock | 06/05/07
Procedural languages vs OOL  woot! | 06/05/07
OO is procedural  jorwell | 06/05/07
OO is a packaging mechanism...  bportlock | 06/05/07
Maybe I agree  jorwell | 06/06/07
Customer or invoice Objects  bportlock | 06/06/07
Why?  jorwell | 06/06/07
You've got it!  bportlock | 06/06/07
No I am still not clear  jorwell | 06/06/07
On second thoughts  jorwell | 06/06/07
I get the feeling I've missed the thrust of your question  bportlock | 06/06/07
"Creating" an order  jorwell | 06/06/07
OO isn't data storage  bportlock | 06/06/07
RDBMS isn't data storage either - it's data representation  jorwell | 06/06/07
What about recursion?  Erik Engbrecht | 06/05/07
Recursion = Iteration  bportlock | 06/05/07
Exactly  Erik Engbrecht | 06/05/07
Haskell..  DannyO_0x98 | 06/05/07
Recursion in RDBMS  jorwell | 06/05/07
You're reading far too much in to what I said  woot! | 06/06/07
Metadata, languages, and runtimes  Erik Engbrecht | 06/05/07
COBOL and the Universe  bportlock | 06/05/07
Good old computational theory  Erik Engbrecht | 06/05/07
LOL!!!  bportlock | 06/05/07
Yes, I introduced a red herring there  jorwell | 06/05/07
What are you smoking? Hash?  D. T. Schmitz | 06/07/07
You're right I've done ISAM an injustice  jorwell | 06/09/07

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