Whatever happened to the neophyte raising him/herself up to level of the master? Programming seems to be the only profession in which the beginner is excused learning the language thoroughly and, worse, that he/she expects the language to be dumbed down to make it easier to learn. Can you imagine a budding musician complaining that musical notation should be made "easier for beginners"? If you want to grok Perl learn Perl ... thoroughly.
> Programming seems to be the only profession in which the neophyte is excused learning the language thoroughly and, worse, that he/she expects the language to be dumbed down to make it easier to learn. Can you imagine a budding musician complaining that musical notation should be made "easier for beginners"?
The problem isn't merely that notation is easy/hard, but that people will not only pass judgement about a language (or any other idea), they will also work actively to convince others to agree with them, and oh yeah, that programmers are people too.
> "worse, that he/she expects the language to be dumbed down to make it easier to learn."
And why should "simplify" have the connotation "dumbed down, for dumb people"? Everyone benefits from simpler things with fewer warts and fewer hazards.
