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From: ark@research.att.com (Andrew Koenig)
Subject: Re: Teaching (was: Why don't large companies use Ada?)
Message-ID: <D0EMAy.9zB@research.att.com>
Organization: Software Engineering Research Department
References: <3b9s34$m58@cleese.apana.org.au> <3bfn7t$75j@felix.seas.gwu.edu>
 <3c21e1$nj@gopher.cs.uofs.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 19:32:58 GMT
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Date: 1994-12-06T19:32:58+00:00
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In article <3c21e1$nj@gopher.cs.uofs.edu> beidler@guinness.cs.uofs.edu (Jack Beidler) writes:

>    I see this point made every year when students who have been 
> using Ada in CS 2 and our Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms
> Course take our Operating Systems Course.  The faculty member who
> teaches that course requires student programs be written in C
> (or C++).  The students learn the new language on their own.
> His first response to student programs was that the student
> programs don't look like typical C programs -- they are modularize,
> you can read them, they use meaning variable names, etc.

>    As for learning C or C++ in the first course, I am reminded of
> an anti drinking and driving billboard "Drinking and driving is stoopid"
> (spelled that way).  

>                TEACHING C OR C++ IN THE FIRST COURSE IS STOOPID

Hmm.  Sounds like the experience doesn't support the conclusion.

I do agree with one thing: it is not nearly as important to
teach a langauge as it is to teach programming.  If you understand
what you are doing, acquiring the language skills is easy; if
not, it is impossible.

Once upon a time I taught a data structures course in Fortran.
Pointers at all.  I did this in part to prove that the concepts
I was trying to teach were language-independent.

I also told students they could use any language they liked
for their homework; if they could learn to write it, I could
learn to read it.  Most of them wound up using Fortran.  Sigh.
-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark@research.att.com