Can anyway really say that English is the “best” language for human communication?
• Probably not. • It is large, irregular, and difficult to master. • It has many ways to say the same thing. • By the same token, most computer scientists are hard pressed to argue that C++ is the best programming language. • Like English, C++ is large, irregular, and difficult to master. • It too has many ways to say the same thing. • Unfortunately, as dwellers in the real world we must learn to deal with such languages as English and C++, or we run the risk of not being able to communicate as widely as we would like to. • We might bury our heads in the sand, and choose to speak Latin and Lisp. • If we do so, the number of humans and computers with whom we could communicate would be very limited indeed. • The bottom line about languages is that a good teaching and learning language is not always a durable communication language. • A very simple introductory problem — determining if a number is positive or negative. • A frequently useful strategy for program problem solving is to cons
