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=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,33e793a459e66944 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: demer@hc17031.hcsd.ca (David Emery) Subject: Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada Date: 1996/10/28 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 193178340 sender: demer@hc17031.hcsd.ca references: organization: HCSD newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-10-28T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Thomas said: >Regarding the article: I couldn't disagree more to most of it. But >there is one sentence in it which deserves a second thought: The >students are said to be "highly motivated" because they jump at C++ >after all the hype they've heard and read about it. Given that they >can learn just a single language at school, they assume that they will >"need" C++ to get a job; maybe they are not even that wrong, the way >things are. Popularity is hardly a good criterion for teaching -anything-. The CS1 language (or its equivalent) should be chosen for its educational advantage, and not because some kid somewhere read that it was helpful for getting a job this week. Besides, it looks like Java is replacing C++ in the "popularity charts"; students who spend a lot of time learning C++ without learning the underlying programming are likely to be unpleasantly surprised when there are no C++ jobs available when they graduate in 4 years... Incidentally, my friends in academia say that there's a big rush towards Java for teaching, as being both "politically correct" and substantially better than C++ for teaching. I'd much rather have a Java-trained programmer than a C++ programmer; it's my observation that the primary skill you learn as a C++ programmer is working with a debugger :-) dave -- <.sig is away on vacation>