Subject: Reasons you might want to avoid taking my class (541) this Fall :-)

Hi all,

I guess everyone on the faculty is probably bombarding you with emails
telling you to please sign up for their course or it will be
cancelled.  The same applies to 541 (Programming Langauges I, see
http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens/ComS541.html).
Besides, I've already sent you such an email once.  So what more can I say?

Well I thought I'd help you decide why you might *not* want to take
541 this Fall.  Here's the top 10 reasons for not taking
541... (imagine a drum roll :-)

10. You have no interest in either the theory of programming or the
    programming of theory.

9. You never get into arguments with your friends about the merits of
   C, C++, Java, C#, Visual Basic, Javascript, Perl, or Python.

8. You understand all the error messages your favorite compiler gives
   you and you're sure there's no possible way to make those more
   friendly and helpful.

7. You're not interested in helping people program more efficiently,
   because you want to make sure your friends all have jobs for a long
   time.

6. You're not interested in how to design languages that students
   could learn to with less trouble, because you want to make sure you
   and your friends all keep their TA jobs.

5. Your research doesn't have anything to do with a domain-specific
   language that communicates directions to a computer, because you
   don't ever use SQL, XML, neural networks, bayesian networks, model
   checkers, or work with any special-purpose data in a particular domain.

4. You know that there is only one right way to solve all programming
   problems. 

3. You think that there is no connection between type safety in
   languages like Java and your safety when you browse to a web page
   with a cool web applet.

2. You are sure that obejct-oriented programming methods will never be
   superceded by some new-fangled paradigm (like aspect-oriented programming).

1. You know that you'll be programming in FORTRAN, er... Pascal, no,
   wait, ...  C, no, ummm... C++, no, wait, definitely Java (well,
   maybe C#), for the rest of your career.

Seriously, if these *don't* fit you, then I wish you'd consider taking
541 this fall, and sign up right away.  I'll be around next week if
you want to discuss the class further.  Don't let scheduling stand in
your way, we can reschedule to make everyone happy if necessary.

-- 

        Gary T. Leavens
        Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University
        229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA
        http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens  phone: +1-515-294-1580