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From: frank@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Frank Manning)
Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn
 C or Pascal?]
Date: 1996/08/22
Message-ID: <4vhtrd$8cq@news.ccit.arizona.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 175731368
references: <01bb846d$c6c01780$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>
 <840288278snz@genesis.demon.co.uk>
 <01bb8c89$9023e3e0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>
 <4vgs4p$evl@news.accessone.com>
organization: College of Engineering and Mines, University of Arizona
newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-08-22T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <4vgs4p$evl@news.accessone.com> bokr@accessone.com (Bengt
Richter) writes:

> What if computers are totally irrelevant? 

When you give students a programming assignment, are the students
required to run the program on actual, physical, real-life computers?
If so, that presents certain...ah...practical problems

Should the students know how to turn on the computer? Do you expect
them to know where the on/off switch is? Suppose they flip the switch
and nothing happens? Are they expected to know that the computer is
supposed to get electrical power somewhere -- is it plugged into a
wall socket, or does it have internal batteries, or what? What if the
fuse is blown? Are they supposed to sit there helplessly?

>         "'... it is important not to lose sight of the fact that
> there is a difference between training and education. If computer
> science is a fundamental discipline, then university education in
> this field should emphasize enduring fundamental principles rather
> than transient current technology.'
>         Peter Wegner, Three Computer Cultures"

Ah, yes. The eternal training-vs-education dilemma.

I totally agree that university education should emphasize fundamentals,
but not to the exclusion of hands-on experience. What happens if you
want to do research, especially if experiments are required? Who's going
to run the experiments? Technicians? You can't get technicians to do
everything. At large research universities, for example, students are
relied on for quite a lot.

And if the students know only abstract theory, how are professors going
to explore new theories if the students are incapable of running
experiments, as the students most certainly will be if they don't know
the details of how the hardware actually works? There are countless ways
an experiment can go wrong or give misleading results. It's difficult to
prevent those problems without a thorough understanding of hardware
details.

-- Frank Manning
-- Chair, AIAA-Tucson Section