[prog] C++ Inheritance - just some musings

[Kathryn Andersen]

On Mon, May 26, 2003 at 02:55:33PM +1000, Sue Stones wrote:
> I am curious as to wheter this learning style has any connection to learning 
> languages.  I am extreemly bad at learning languages, but maths (and anatomy) 
> are a diferent matter all together.   I was put off from attempting CS for 20 
> years because I was told that I needed to be good at languages.

How very odd.  I'd only ever been told that you needed to be good at
maths for CS.  Learning languages really doesn't have much to do with CS
as far as I can tell, considering that any natural language is going to
be much more irregular than any computer language.  And I'm not sure
that maths excellence is *that* necessary -- just a certain level of
logical thinking.  Well, a love of mathematical "elegance" is in there
too, but the "elegance" of pure maths is, well, purer, than the usual
things one encounters in computing.  I think one needs a penchant for
problem-solving, though.  There's a certain amount of "detecting" that
has to go on, in fixing bugs.  For indeed, it's no good saying "But *my*
code never has bugs" -- because even if that were true, guess what, in
the Real World one is usually given someone else's code to work with.

Kathryn Andersen
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