On Sunday, 6 May 2018 at 09:16:24 UTC, Marco de Wild wrote:
If I have to conclude anything, it is that there, in my opinion
and in the context of my philosophy, should not be a one
language during a study. D definitely has a place in there with
how different language features are set up.
Defenately true. I learned some C at school, then some java, C#
and broadened my scope of languages and programming styles from
then on. Besides learning the languages, I the most important
thing we were tought was to be language agnostic. While I can't
say I completely am, I can carry over ideas from one language to
another. I think that D is a useful language in this regard
because it has a realistic, pragmatic and theoretically "correct"
way of constructs you find in other languages while not limiting
the user. I think that this is very important to teaching.
In contrast, when there were lectures about databases the main
database the course focussed on was MySQL. Which is not
neccesarily a bad choice as a teaching method. It's just that
MySQL deviates from the standard more than for instance
PostgreSQL. Therefore it was relatively difficult to learn
databases and SQL and at the same time make the assignments for
MySQL since there was a small translation step in the middle
which had to be taken. Taking this step away could give a boost
to learning and maybe a better understanding.
On Friday, 4 May 2018 at 15:14:55 UTC, bachmeier wrote:>
One way that I could see D getting its foot in the door is an
intro course using Java or Python but where the instructor
wants to devote a couple of lectures to low-level programming
using pointers. D would be perfect for that due to the
convenient syntax. Other topics like metaprogramming or memory
management would also be reasons to use D.
Hmm sounds interesting. Maybe writing runtimes for relative
simple languages in D as a course?
On Sunday, 6 May 2018 at 01:35:53 UTC, Seb wrote:
@ everyone in this discussion: you ask and answer the wrong
question.
The question needs to be:
"What can we do or improve upon to allow D playing a bigger
role in education?"
More awarenes of D's existance for teachers?
How about fliers on schools, aimed at teachers?
Speakers at teacher conferences on conputer science?
Maybe a focus group of D teachers and help them out?
That, and actual quality free teaching material.
