Re: Survey of Educators

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!iggy.GW.Vit]

Is it just me, or is there something in the tone of the questionaire that
seems to continue a tone that I thought those of us who are concerned with 
software engineering and Ada would like to see dissappear.  Specifically, 
there is an attitude implied with questions 2, 3, 4, and 6 that implies
that we teach courses in programming languages.  Frankly, I believe that
any computing department that teaches a course in any programming language,
including Ada, is doing both its students and the computing community a 
terrible disservice.  

Concepts should drive every course.  The language is a necessary evil that we
have to put up with.  We select programming languages for two reasons, one
positive and one negative:
a.   The language provides good support for the material and assists in
     getting the concepts across.

b.   We use a programming language because it does not get in the way of 
     teaching concepts.

These are the reasons I am using Ada in my courses.  If a language is good,
and I think Ada is, then we should be encouraging good software development
practices and the understanding of concepts and help nature take the path 
to Ada.
-- 
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|  John (Jack) Beidler				                              |
|  Prof. of Computer Science  Internet (VAX/VMS)  BEIDLER@JAGUAR.UOFS.ED      |
|  University of Scranton     Internet (SUN/UNIX) BEIDLER@GUINNESS.CS.UOFS.EDU|
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