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: 103376,885dab3998d28a4 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) Subject: Re: Real-world education (was: Ariane 5 failure) Date: 1996/09/29 Message-ID: <52ncom$jrp@felix.seas.gwu.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 186136852 references: <1996Sep29.193602.17369@enterprise.rdd.lmsc.lockheed.com> organization: George Washington University newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-09-29T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <1996Sep29.193602.17369@enterprise.rdd.lmsc.lockheed.com>, Chris McKnight wrote: [Rich Pattis' good stuff snipped.] > > An excellent bit of teaching, IMHO. Glad to hear they're putting some > more of the real world issues in the class room. Rich Pattis is indeed an experienced, even gifted teacher of introductory courses, with a very practical view of what they should be about. Without diminishing Rich Pattis' teaching experience or skill one bit, I am somewhat perplexed at the unfortunate stereotypical view you seem to have of CS profs. Yours is the second post today to have shown evidence of that stereotypical view; both you and the other poster have industry addresses. This is my 22nd year as a CS prof, I travel a lot in CS education circles, and - while we, like any population, tend to hit a bell curve - I've found that there are a lot more of us out here than you may think with Pattis-like commitment to bring the real world into our teaching. Sure, there are theorists, as there are in any field, studying and teaching computing just because it's "beautiful", with little reference to real application, and there's a definite place in the teaching world for them. Indeed, exposure to their "purity" of approach is healthy for undergraduates - there is no harm at all in taking on computing - sometimes - as purely an intellectual exercise. But it's a real reach from there to an assumption that most of us are in that theoretical category. I must say that there's a definite connection between an interest in Ada and an interest in real-world software; certainly most of the Ada teachers I've met are more like Pattis than you must think. Indeed, it's probably our commitment to that "engineering" view of computing that brings us to like and teach Ada. But it's not just limited to Ada folks. I had the pleasure of participating in a SIGCSE panel last March entitled "the first year beyond language." Organized by Owen Astrachan of Duke, a C++ fan, this panel consisted of 6 teachers of first-year courses, each using a different language. Pascal, C++, Ada, Scheme, Eiffel, and (as I recall) ML were represented. The challenge Owen made to each of us was to give a 10-minute "vision statement" for first-year courses, without identifying which language we "represented." Owen revealed the languages to the audience only after the presentations were done. It was _really_ gratifying that - with no prior agreement or discussion among us - five of the six of us presented very similar visions, in the "computing as engineering" category. It doesn;t matter which language the 6th used; the important thing was that, considering the diversity of our backgrounds, teaching everywhere from small private colleges to big public universities, we were in _amazing_ agreement. The message for me in the stereotype presented above is that it's probably out of date and certainly out of touch. I urge my industry friends to get out of _their_ ivory towers, and come visit us. Find out what we're _really_ doing. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Especially, check out those of us who are introducing students to _Ada_ as their first, foundation language. Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pork is all that money the government gives the other guys. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WWW: http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/ or http://info.acm.org/sigada/education ------------------------------------------------------------------------