Re: bindings and assignments (was: Re: continuations)

[Matthias Felleisen <address@hidden>]

On Thursday, August 21, 2003, at 04:52 PM, Gregor Kiczales wrote:
>
> Another thing I've learned is that there is less difference between 
> technical
> and social issues than we sometimes think. Some technical issues 
> involve truly
> objective facts. But  many technical issues are themselves social 
> issues --
> they are issues that one group of people, who self-identify as 
> technical elites,
> consider most important.
>

Yeap, we agree on that much. But, if we look really closely, it's still 
all about
how much hype one camp can generate over another, which affects the root
of the problem:
      even kids learn what is popular now in the "real" world
and so-called "real worlders" strongly encourage them. And then we find 
out
that we don't have programmers who understand the power of "single 
point of
control" and the lack thereof in conventional languages.

So, see where I came from? But you know what, Don Quixote had an easy
life. With so many "adults" supporting status-quo languages and so few 
of them
supporting a good cause, there is just no hope.

-- Matthias

P.S. Just to give you an idea how bad social issues are: 25 times as 
many kids
take the AP in Calculus than in CS. Even statistics (yes statistics) is 
twice as popular
as CS. And that's only for the boys; if you saw the numbers for the 
girls, your hair
would stand up. The old curricula have failed to bring across how 
central CS and
programming can be for 20 or 30 years. And yet, we have people support 
it.