Sunday, November 17, 2013

History of computer science: my version



         I am a student majored in computer science. From my history of learning computer courses, I can tell the development of computer science program.
        
           Seventeen years ago, I was a freshman majored in computer science. My first language was Pascal. “Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968–1969 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.” At the first day of class, my professor said to us, “You will regret to take computer science as your major because computer science is the fastest development field in all majors. What you learn today is the knowledge which is already out of date.” Actually, he is right.   Even I put my whole heart on Pascal, my first computer language; I never used it in my following life.  When I mentioned Pascal in some computer field topic recently, little people knew this language.
                     


       The second language I learned is Language C. C is one of the most widely used programming languages. Many later languages have borrowed directly or indirectly from C, including C++, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, C shell, and so on.
    
      Five years ago, I returned to school to continue my study. The first course I took in computer language is C, my lovely C. Since then, I have learned C++, C shell and Java.

       Java is the most popular programming languages in Silicon Valley. My friends who work in computer related company told me that it is easy to find a job in bay area if you are good at Java.
      
        From Pascal to C, from C to Java, programming language never stop its steps. As a computer science student, I will never stop my learning steps. “Never stop” exists everywhere in the history of computer science.

                      
                        
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1 comment:

  1. Hi Yibei,
    I agree with your professor’s words that what we learn today is out dated technology tomorrow. I think that is the beauty of computer science and I do not regret taking computer science as my major. You gave a nice personal touch to your post by sharing us your experience in various programming languages. Surely Pascal is not being used much today. Good that you learned C and Java which are being widely used. I hope your java knowledge helps you in finding job in Silicon Valley. Good Luck!

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