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From: papresco@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod)
Subject: Re: Theory #51 (superior(?) programming languages)
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Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 17:38:03 GMT
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In article <5cighm$5mf@hnssysb.hns.com>, Steven Huang <sthuang@hns.com> wrote:
>In article <3063055314263603@naggum.no> Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> writes:
>>* David Hanley
>>| Then why did't they flunk out of the SE class?
>
>>why do you think they had an SE class?
>
>>haven't you noticed that those who have software engineering and have a
>>computer science education don't usually write software in C?
>[...]
>
>I've had Software Engineering both as an undergrad and graduate student
>of Computer Science, and I now work for a company that uses C for its
>embedded systems development.  Am I really that unusual, or are you
>just unable to see too far beyond your immediate surroundings?

Knuth programs in C-Web, which is essentially C (as far as the 
programming constructs), and I think he qualifies as having
"a computer science education."

From my personal experience, I believe that most commercial
(as opposed to corporate) software developers program in C or 
C++, regardless of their level of educational experience. 
The tragic truth is that most operating systems, SDKs and existing 
code bases are sufficiently biased towards C or C++ that it isn't 
worth changing. The "age of the Internet" offers an opportunity
to rewrite many things, so Java has the "big break" that it
would not have had a few years ago.

The JVM may also offer interesting opportunities for other
languages, because it is a more hospitable runtime environment
(gc, dynamic type checking, etc.) than a traditional operating
system.

 Paul Prescod

