I am a graduate student in Software Engineering interested in determining what
the most popular computer languages used in UNDERGRADUATE computing sciences
programs are, and why. I am curious to know the objectives and approaches of
various CS departments in the contexts of languages and operating systems. From
your responses I will compile a summary and post it back to the USENET. There
are only three questions which you can answer in as much detail as you feel is
necessary.
(1) What are your department's 3 most emphasized languages (and why)?
(2) What are your department's 2 most emphasized operating systems (and why)?
(3) How important do think your choice of languages and/or operating systems
is to your overall CS program(s)? (i.e. as opposed to the other aspects of
CS, in particular theory.)
If you have any other information you might like to add, please do so. Your
input is greatly appreciated.
Direct e-mail responses please to ········@cho006.cho.ge.com (Summer job) OR
····@jaguar.uofs.edu or ····@scranton.bitnet (University of Scranton, PA)
Thank you.
--
Chris Little GE Fanuc Automation, Charlottesville, Virginia (804) 978-6274
········@cho006.cho.ge.com ····@scranton.bitnet ····@jaguar.uofs.edu
In article <·····················@cho006.cho.ge.com>, ········@cho006.cho.ge.com (Chris Little) writes:
>
> I am a graduate student in Software Engineering interested in determining what
> the most popular computer languages used in UNDERGRADUATE computing sciences
> programs are, and why. I am curious to know the objectives and approaches of
> various CS departments in the contexts of languages and operating systems. From
> your responses I will compile a summary and post it back to the USENET. There
> are only three questions which you can answer in as much detail as you feel is
> necessary.
>
> (1) What are your department's 3 most emphasized languages (and why)?
>
> (2) What are your department's 2 most emphasized operating systems (and why)?
>
> (3) How important do think your choice of languages and/or operating systems
> is to your overall CS program(s)? (i.e. as opposed to the other aspects of
> CS, in particular theory.)
>
> If you have any other information you might like to add, please do so. Your
> input is greatly appreciated.
>
> Direct e-mail responses please to ········@cho006.cho.ge.com (Summer job) OR
> ····@jaguar.uofs.edu or ····@scranton.bitnet (University of Scranton, PA)
>
> Thank you.
>
I'm a grad student too. When I was an undergrad at Cornell, the three
most used languages were Pascal, C, FORTRAN, in roughly that order. Why
Pascal? It's pretty structured and teaches good programming style. It's
used in the AP exams. A lot of other schools use it too. It certainly
has features such as pointers, recursion, etc. that FORTRAN doesn't.
C is used, though typically not taught, in upper level courses. The
reason is that it is popular. C is the hot language of the 80's
and 90's. It's typically incorporated anywhere UNIX is. Usually,
a knowledge of Pascal makes learning C quicker.
Finally, ugh, there's FORTRAN. It exists because a lot of scientific
computational software is still written in FORTRAN, and that people
believe it is still useful in scientific computations. I only had
one course that used it.
(2) When I took operating systems, we looked at generic capabilities
common to many systems. I suspect UNIX would be the most popular
one since it is widely used across the nation. VMS might be close,
and then there are others looked at for historical reasons (like
MULTICS). I think this is the standard approach. One compares many
operating systems or looks at generic, common features such as
methods of memory management, etc.
(3) Nothing to say.
I suspect one uses a language that will allow you to use some of the
underlying hardware (such as clocks, etc). One has to be able to place
the programs in certain locations, etc. Languages which do not
have these capabilities make it unlikely to be used. Also, portability,
and similar issues might make C, for example, preferable to something
like LISP. (Although the Symbolics LISP machines have LISP as the
language of its operating system).
Just my 2 cents.........
--
______ __ __ ___ ____
/ ____ \ | | |__| | \ | | Charles Lin
| / \_| | | __ | \| | e-mail: ····@eng.umd.edu
| | | | | | | |\ |
| | _ | | |__| |__| \___| University of Maryland
| \____/ | | |____ "I hate big sigs." -- Moo
\______/ \_______|