Tal Cohen's Bookshelf: A Collection of Personal Opinions about Books

Ken Magel writes:
Has the Programming Language Universe Grown Too Large for One Pe
Perhaps Steve McConnell and everyone else is unable to comprehend all of the growing universe of programming languages and related phenomena? When the first edition of this book was published I found the expressed viewpoint not comprehensive, but still very valuable. Even then, the author did not appear to understand everything significant about programming languages, but the author did seem to understand most of the significant stuff. As the area has grown more and more complex and especially varied, the author seems to be speaking more and more from one very useful, but narrow perspective. Beyond the criticisms the reviewer mentions, the author in the second edition seems not to understand dynamically typed languages very well.
[322] Posted on Friday, 13 June 2008 at 17:52 GMT [Reply to this] [Permalink]


Tal Cohen writes in reply to Ken Magel:
Has the Programming Language Universe Grown Too Large for One Pe
The ''programming language universe'' has certainly not grown too large in this sense. And even if it had, in a book that deals with a mere handful of languages, one would expect the author to be familiar in greater detail with the languages he writes about. I wouldn't have had any complaints about lack of familiarity with Java, for example, had the author not attempted to provide specific advice to Java programmers.
[328] Posted on Saturday, 14 June 2008 at 11:53 GMT [Reply to this] [Permalink]

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