WOW!  We agree AGAIN! 8-)

Judson McClendon wrote:

> Alicia Carla Longstreet <carla@ici.net> wrote:
> >
> > BASIC should *NEVER* under any circumstances be taught to first time
> > programmers.  It is the worst possible language to use to teach
> > programming.  This tirade does not apply to the various modular
> > languages, like Visual Basic, that are not really BASIC but use Basic in
> > their names.
>
> You obviously learned this from books or someone else, not from experience in
> teaching others to program!  Perhaps you are unfamiliar with languages like
> APL or RPG?  Modern BASICs like QuickBasic are far and away superior to
> those, or C, for a beginning language.  QB supports formal subroutines and
> functions, with prototyping and data typing, constants, recursion, name
> scoping, data structures, etc.  You obviously don't know this, or you would
> hardly make such rashly silly statements.
>
> > C is actually a good first langauge.  The set of keywords is small so
> > the instructor can concentrate on concepts like  data types, structured
> > programming, modularity, encapsulation and data hiding,and algorithms
> > rather on a thousand and one commands needed to do all of the above.  A
> > beginner needs only <string.h> and <stdio.h> for the first semester, and
> > 60% of the functions in these can be safely ignored.  That leaves less
> > than 100 keywords that the beginner needs to learn.
>
> C is a *horrible* first language!  If you actually think learning C as a
> first language makes it easier, then you are running around out in the weeds
> somewhere, looking for home.  You either 1) don't know C, or 2) don't know
> anything else.  Talking about the 'number of keywords' in C, as if that were
> the difficulty issue, is farcical!  How are you going to teach them to input
> or output anything without getting into the standard functions?  Have you
> actually looked at how many C functions there are to handle I/O?  C is far
> and away more subtle and difficult to learn than BASIC.  You can't even
> discuss string handling in C getting into arrays, pointers, pointers to
> arrays, the host of string handling functions, etc.  You can't even discuss
> many of the basic functions like scanf() without discussing pointers,
> indirection, address-of, etc.  You start discussing all these concepts to a
> beginning student, and likely their eyes will glaze over.  Why start a
> beginner out in a language which requires assimilation of all these concepts
> before they can actually DO anything?  Many people have trouble abstracting
> their logic.  They need a beginning language which allows them to ease into
> the concepts, and build on what they've learned, without having to take on
> too much too soon.  It is very important, when starting to learn any
> completely new subject, that the student develop a feeling of confidence.  To
> achieve this, students need a beginning language in which they can get
> results early.  Anyone who has even a little experience in teaching others
> should know this.  Learning to program with C as a first language is like
> learning to ski on an 'extreme' slope!
> --
> Judson McClendon          This is a faithful saying and worthy of all
> Sun Valley Systems        acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the
> judmczzz@mindspring.com   world to save sinners  (1 Timothy 1:15)
> (please remove zzz from email id to respond)