> I personally haven't a problem dealing with new languages, but the jury is > still out on whether students can easily migrate to another language after > only learning CF's tags.
I would agree. I dont think CF is the best entry-level language to teach new programmers. For that matter i dont think its a good idea for anybody to learn programming in an un-typed procedural language. too easy to get into bad habbits. I did a course at uni in web engineering (www.cs.newcastle.edu.au/~seng2050) , the course covered web development in general and UML for developing web applications. They covered JSP/Servlets and PHP, but the final assignment was open to so you could develop in in whatever you liked including CF. This is probably where CF fits into the picture of educational languages, more as an optional extension than core learning. On the other side of the coin i think that CF would be usefull in a course more aimed at designers than programmers, either for building back-ends to flash or for providing simple dynamic content (eg. the famous MM example of doing a query in CF and outputting resultset in less code than ASP). This is becuase your not interested in teaching students how the code works, its just a means to an end. I think maybe you kinda need to ask 'why do we develop in CF' ? Its because its RAD tool. You can do things alot faster and use less code than alternative languages out there. This means that alot of the specifics of how things are achieved are hidden in the magic of those wonderfull <CFSomething> tags. This is not the best thing when your trying to teach someone how to program. I think you need to know the rules first before you can start to break them and take shorcuts like you can in CF. my 2c Pat "Beattie, Barry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Although we get lots of these arguments too, I'm sure we get more students > understanding programming because of it. CFC's (basic OO programming) > especially so. > > Robin Hilliard could jump in here and point out the "paying for worthwhile > technology" argument and the dev edition being free, etc (the students only > argument remining might be lack of free CF hosts/CF hosting costing more > than PHP, etc) > > <- my point -> > my worry is that after teaching CF as a tag-based language, how transferable > are these skills to > other languages? > </- my point -> > > eg: last year was the last time we taught ASP - it died out. sucessful > students were able to pick up another language (eg: PHP) and get a job > because they knew how web programming worked and they were skilled in an > un-typed procedural language. > > I personally haven't a problem dealing with new languages, but the jury is > still out on whether students can easily migrate to another language after > only learning CF's tags. > > eg: I didn't teach CFINSERT and discourage students from using it. They'd be > better off using CFQUERY and an INSERT INTO sql statement. There are not > many CFINSERT equiv in other languages so it's use for me is very limited. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Stanton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, 20 October 2003 10:17 AM > To: CFAussie Mailing List > Subject: [cfaussie] RE: Rates for start-up > > > I tried to get CF into TAFE when I was teaching there, but was met with some > pretty negative feedback from staff & students. The logic behind there > argument was why should we be learning/teaching something that costs $$ when > there are "free" products (I am aware of the counter arguments) in the same > space. I thought this was a fair enough considering that most of the > students were looking at getting up & running with web dev stuff on their > own or in their businesses with a minimum budget. > > The part that really didn't make sense was the insane investment in M$ > products that TAFE were more than happy to make & push. AFAIK M$ were *very* > supportive of TAFE. > > I would have loved to have got CF in there because I really think students > would have been able to learn & achieve more in their time there. But at the > same time I can understand the students reluctance. These people turning up > on their own time 3 nights a week for a year - working their guts out.... > the lower the barrier to entry (dollar wise especially) for these people, > the better IMHO. > > In the end we went with php.... > > > Cheers > > Mark > > > > > --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] MX Downunder AsiaPac DevCon - http://mxdu.com/
