From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,4b06f8f15f01a568 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Michael Stark Subject: Re: Is there a language that Dijkstra liked? (was: Re: Software landmines (loops)) Date: 1998/10/24 Message-ID: <3631DBCA.4D54@cs.umd.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 404601110 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <6skfs7$2s6$1@hirame.wwa.com> <35F252DD.5187538@earthlink.net> <6t4dge$t8u$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6t5mtp$4ho$1@news.indigo.ie> <35FFE58C.5727@ibm.net> <3600E72E.24C93C94@cl.cam.ac.uk> <6ts1q0$vo2$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <361DBC60.C153BBAD@earthlink.net> <36228EC3.4F7381FD@domain.nul> <3630b064.23189339@news.supernews.com> <363139F1.3A552E1F@csi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: abuse@cs.umd.edu X-Trace: cronkite.cs.umd.edu 909237194 17708 128.8.126.43 (24 Oct 1998 13:53:14 GMT) Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Oct 1998 13:53:14 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-10-24T13:53:14+00:00 List-Id: DPH wrote: > > Arun Mangalam wrote: > > > There are practically only two reasosn why Brian Mueller would reply this way: > > > > 1) His teacher is complete moron who doesn't comment anything and does > > barely any error-checking with Ada. > > 2) Brian does not know how to listen or understand what the professor is > > trying to do or say. > > > > The first case is probably not very credible, since most professors are > > not imbeciles... > > Aha! There you have it. PROFESSORS! Who says the guy even HAS a professor teaching > his class! > > Been to a University in the last few years? I took a course at IUPUI (Indiana > University Purdue University at Indianapolis) and signed up for C++. They hired > some ya-hoo from private industry as an "associate" professor. > There were others like him, from the horror stories I was getting from those that > took other classes. The University goes out and gets these guys from some local > private industry office that want to make a buck in the evening, and don't > necessarily have a clue about actual software engineering or niceities such as > commenting code, etc., but are up to their eyeballs in their own code all day, > possibly wondering why they can't figure out the uncommented coded they made 3 years > ago that they have to modify now. This is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overgeneralized! I have had courses taught by full-time professors, by grad students, by post-docs, and by part-time instructors. I have had horrible professors, and I have had solid instructors (and vice-versa). For me, two predictors that you can use early in the semester are 1) Is the syllabus clear? Does it tell you how many homeworks and projects there will be (or at least a good approximation)? Does it give you a schedule of when exams are and when projects (or interim steps in semester-long projects) are due? Does it give you a breakdown of how your final grade will be determined? 2) Does the teacher work clear examples in class, or just talk in generalities? Obviously (to me), most of the learning is done in the work outside of class, but clear examples in lecture make your studying sooooo much easier. My guess is that the professor that the original poster is whining about (maybe with justification ;) does not meet these criteria. The other option is that the student is to blame, but I would never assume this without evidence. Whether the professor, student, or TA is at fault, it is clear to me that the programming language isn't. My personal preference would be to use a language such as Pascal or Ada in the first course, and introduce trickier languages such as C++ in more advanced courses. I disagree with any program that builds around a single language. In my current grad program I've (so far) used LISP, C, C with Oracle calls embedded, Visual Basic, Matlab, C++, and am about to start learning Tcl for a GIS project. I'm expecting to use Java in at least one of my courses next semester. > > Soooo.... maybe this guy's "professor" really is a moron in terms of software > design or with respect to playing the role of educator... > > DPH -- Michael Stark Goddard Research & Study Fellow University of Maryland, College Park e-mail: mstark@cs.umd.edu phone: (301) 405-2721 "Godspeed, John Glenn"