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,a9b0810d3106d9b8 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 06:27:23 -0500 From: Peter C. Chapin Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Fun with C Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 07:27:10 -0400 Organization: Vermont Technical College Message-ID: <9j18r6hrlf06adfv4rdothhdrjmfdrmeno@4ax.com> References: <4b5748dc-60fa-4cec-a317-054626e9a1ca@d19g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <1908th3tyz101.1f6c5w8t9mggy.dlg@40tude.net> <2118e788-7b3e-4d25-8d0f-5e60498e3a3b@cu4g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> <1hnl95prvrt6i$.1s675gncbjxsu$.dlg@40tude.net> <5d44db50-ceff-4f4d-8bc7-714f31fbca06@hd10g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> <1uthrsrabx8di$.8i74uk28axo0.dlg@40tude.net> <84b83223-e191-4912-8f73-318deb4dd783@d19g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <1j2bi0982bjcs.1beq9xn9za9yb$.dlg@40tude.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 6.00/32.1186 trialware MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-aVRVJgCTUZQiM2MifuHXW/gJrCryotbf5IfodKl4X8jvZmAf7fXZKczVIoAsn4kmVxHdaYC28eXVsXs!WBQfzNbfjMlLactkTns4E++LSCM1Es1A5CEsDqIRqCp8mMrT0BkRucAqUQZZ9xbhSUmq7oY= X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 3518 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:20001 Date: 2011-04-24T07:27:10-04:00 List-Id: On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 23:36:36 +0200, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" wrote: >Why would anybody consider the Earth round? Let us start teaching students >that the Earth is flat, after all it is a useful approximation for building >construction. Later you can tell them that it is not very flat... It sounds like you think that's a bad thing. In fact when constructing a building you don't take into account the curvature of the Earth. For example you don't use spherical trigonometry to lay out the foundation. Students learning about building construction certainly know (from elsewhere) that the Earth is not flat but they also don't want to hear about it in their course. Similarly students in an introductory physics course know that Newtonian physics isn't the last word on the subject but they are happy to study a more basic (and still useful) system to start. You've said repeatedly that you are not a teacher and, frankly, it shows. I can tell you based on my 25 years of experience teaching that attempting to teach relativity and quantum mechanics, in any sort of significant way, to first year physics students would be a disaster. They don't have the mathematical background, for one thing, to handle it. I think similar comments apply to programming education. That said, I do agree with one point that you've made: programming languages can be a distraction. I actually had a student recently suggest to me that we teach our first programming course using pseudo-code instead of C (we are a computer engineering program so C seems like the right first language). He said, "that way students could focus on organizing their program rather than on getting some strange code to compile." It would be an interesting experiment to try that, but I'm not sure it would help in the long run. In later courses I want them to write programs that compile and work so they will need to deal with that issue sooner or later. Which is easier to teach first? It's unclear. Peter