On Saturday, 5 May 2018 at 11:25:45 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
On Sat, 2018-05-05 at 03:02 +0000, KingJoffrey via
Digitalmars-d wrote: […]
Students should learn C first, Java second. Not one or the
other, both!
What is the pedegogy here, what are the justifications.
That the languages being taught to undergrads, must be pervasive.
That the languages being taught to undergrads, must teach them
about low-level types, and higher-level types.
And a whole lot of other stuff..(e.g, open source, cross
platform, have multiple compilers, standardised, formalised,
etc..) ..I can't be bothered typing any more ...
In UK we have Scratch then Python then ??? This is working
tremendously well to get large numbers of young people
programming far better than most professional programmers.
Don't teach undergrads how to play with toys!
They can play with toys in junior high school, sure.
Then, perhaps, they will begin to understand the basics of
computer programming - from both extremes.
C and Java are not extremes. Lisp, assembly language, Haskell,
Erlang, these are extremes.
C and Java, in comparison to each other, are at the end of each
extreme.
Those other languages you mention are mostly irrelevant (at least
on a grand scale), and certainly non-pervasisve. They have no
place in undergrad course.
D could be a postgrad interest perhaps.
No, this would be a bad idea.We can debate this elsewhere.
That should depend on the interests of the postgrad.
At some point, we really, really should let them choose to focus
on what interests them.
And what's earning an income got to do with anything? It's a
stupid concept that humans have imposed on themselves, and
it's the primary cause of all things that are wrong with
society. The sooner we move to universal incomes, the better
grauate programmers we'll get, cause they'll be studying it
because it actually interests them, as opposed to being
motived by its' 'earning' capacity.
There being jobs using a programming language may not be a
primary driver, but it is a secondary driver. University
courses not using Java, Go, and JavaScript somewhere in the
curriculum theses days get shunned by students. OK so all
programming is clearly Web programming and nothing else is
needed. :-)
you forgot 'mobile'.
So let me provide something actually constructive:
Given that the world will move inexorably to using Python for
teaching young people programming the trick is to have a Python
→ D learning programme with lots of support. Teaching support
is everything in this aspect of the game.
Python should be banned! Cut of it's head!!
Teach the teachers that D is the route from Python to native
code programming and thence C, C++, Fortran, etc, and you have
an angle. Having an angle that appeals to the teachers is the
first step in getting students to be taught a programming
language.
Java proved this.
As someone intimately involved with a university for many, many
years, I have to wonder whether teachers are the problem, rather
than the solution ;-)
