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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,3d76796391769899 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!feeder1.cambriumusenet.nl!194.109.133.84.MISMATCH!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed5.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!news.wiretrip.org!feeder3.cambriumusenet.nl!feed.tweaknews.nl!193.201.147.68.MISMATCH!feeder.news-service.com!tudelft.nl!txtfeed1.tudelft.nl!multikabel.net!newsfeed10.multikabel.net!feeder2.hitnews.eu!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!npeer-ng0.de.kpn-eurorings.net!newsfeed.arcor.de!newsspool2.arcor-online.net!news.arcor.de.POSTED!not-for-mail Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:35:05 +0200 From: Georg Bauhaus User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1.10) Gecko/20100512 Thunderbird/3.0.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Improving the first contact with Ada References: <41d3829e-286d-4894-9140-31343bfa75ac@o12g2000vba.googlegroups.com> <82y6fgxncs.fsf@stephe-leake.org> <82aarux3g3.fsf@stephe-leake.org> <2da7ba0b-0c45-4c7b-a523-b3438e43212a@j27g2000vbp.googlegroups.com> <87k4qsapgr.fsf_-_@ludovic-brenta.org> <096e5f19-ed4d-4c02-b889-88856ac0d5c7@5g2000yqz.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: <096e5f19-ed4d-4c02-b889-88856ac0d5c7@5g2000yqz.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <4c15e9b9$0$6890$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net> Organization: Arcor NNTP-Posting-Date: 14 Jun 2010 10:35:05 CEST NNTP-Posting-Host: be06de90.newsspool2.arcor-online.net X-Trace: DXC=:bi?GFL4P_I2:OR3:3gaE@A9EHlD;3YcB4Fo<]lROoRA8kFejVH=eCXOHnBHOOUcO7C X-Complaints-To: usenet-abuse@arcor.de Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11696 Date: 2010-06-14T10:35:05+02:00 List-Id: On 6/13/10 7:26 PM, zeta_no wrote: > To be sure you understand my point here, I see this type of tutorial > as something that can be quite long and involving. Rarely you can > find that type of a document, that does not qualify as a book nor as a > quick and dirty tutorial, as being organized halfway between a master > thesis and a final year thesis. It treats a known subject (compared > with the master thesis), with solid knowledge and neat understanding > (compared with some final year thesis). These documents are great > starters to light up curiosity and understanding to then permit > austere books to sink in. Indeed, there is an opportunity to set up an Ada teaching project in the much needed style of Touch of Class (ETH Z�rich) or similar. Much needed if it is true that CS education is no longer a sufficient credential for some industries. A teaching project could extend across several semesters, can include virtual production scenarios, require teams, will start from a larger and serious piece of software (to be written by university staff) and include a collection of non-accidental hardware. This can be fun (model trains is an example, I imagine there are others, equally realistic and equally affordable). I mean, we get to read about pressure sensors and thermometers all the time. But are the real things part of CS proper? As a modest example, I guess, it will be both possible and instructive to teach a sorting algorithm that runs on a microcontroller. But you cannot, I think, teach that in one week! (Thinking further, it might be necessary to not be too specific in the project, since being specific means being exclusive and you loose your audience: - doesn't have to be control software requiring 2 years of soldering and quantum effects; - a banking scenario offers enough to engage students for years, you might kill the project, though, by asking for 1 year experience in enterprise accounting; - if there is a number crunching department, then there might be modules that need to be written and that can be written without a degree in math, but whose effect is seen in a larger computing effort (it is demonstrably difficult to find mathematicians who can even imagine that students from other departments find math more difficult than they do, so the tasks would have to be chosen to meet either need)) Do professors like it? Will they be allowed to do it? I can't say whether university management can consider anything but the latest style of measuring university reputation, such as number of publications with "impact". If it turns out that industry as a whole will like successful teaching as much as anything else, this should encourage larger teaching projects. The purpose of the Bologna process in Europe is to establish a "European degree". I'd think that a long term CS project offers an interesting teaching instrument. It even achieves measurable success, and can be re-adjusted when needed, without anyone needing to feel bad.