From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 29 Jul 93 13:52:33 GMT From: math.fu-berlin.de!dww@uunet.uu.net (Debora Weber-Wulff) Subject: Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted for Ada9X Message-ID: <6NTFB87U@math.fu-berlin.de> List-Id: Now Greg, let's think a bit clearer about the choice of first-year CS language. It would, of course, be nice to teach a language that would be useful throughout the time spent at university and would be beneficial as a job-getter. With the PAL getting in gear the chances of finding good stuff to use in upper level courses have increased. [When I showed the PAL list to my colleagues they were quite impressed - now we have to go buy a new disk to put the stuff on, but whatever :-)] One of the reasons we should be choosing a first language is to pick one which will shape the way in which these young persons think. It is sort of a mother tongue that we are teaching. [I have seen people program FORTRAN in Pascal, BASIC in Pascal, Pascal in C - the first language you learn often seems to you to be the *right* way to do things.] So because we think that a disciplined approach to creating software is a GOOD THING, we feel that the students should be learning a language like Ada that *won't let them hack*. Now Ada's not perfect, but now that I know the corners to avoid for beginners (FIXED!) I can see that it a quite good teaching *and* a very good production language. I used to be an Ada-Hater (brought on, I believe by C.A.R. Hoare [That's *Tony*, not *Charles*, Ted!] and his Turing lecture), but I do like it now. And since I just tell my students: We are doing programming in an object-based manner, the majority are quite content to learn. I even had a C hacker come up to me at the end of the term and say "Gee, Ada's a pretty neat language, even if it is such a pain in the *censored* to type!" As you note, Greg, we forget the *details* of what we learn in the first few years of college. But the *way of thinking*, the programming habits that are cultivated in those years will stay around and influence all of our future work! The reason for the "best" schools not using Ada, IMHO, is that they are research-oriented (i.e. getting external funding by hacking something for industry) and thus do not give thought to didactical reasons for anything. The schools you mentioned using Ada are indeed *teaching* schools, dedicated to actually teaching people instead of letting them sink-or-swim. -- Debora Weber-Wulff, Professorin fuer Softwaretechnik snail: Technische Fachhochschule Berlin, FB Informatik, Luxemburgerstr. 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany email: dww@informatik.tfh-berlin.d400.de