-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 06/22/2013 04:22 PM, Lindsey Kuper wrote: > On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 2:50 PM, David Evans > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Does anyone know of any other efforts to use Rust in teaching, or >> have any advice on this? I would welcome any suggestions or >> pointers to resources that might be useful for this (or caveats >> if people think Rust is not ready/appropriate to use for an >> undergraduate course now?) > > One risk that no one has mentioned yet is that the Rust > documentation isn't all that good yet, by which I mean both the > official docs and the other resources that are available. I know > that when I was an undergrad, I sometimes struggled with picking up > a new language even when the docs were quite complete and correct, > and that isn't the case with Rust yet. > > And for some undergrads, just building and installing Rust might be > a hurdle. Moreover, if they install a released version of the > language and then complain of problems on the IRC channel, they're > likely to hear, "That's been fixed in the head of the tree for > three weeks already. Keep up!" > > For that matter, if your students aren't already familiar with how > to participate (even as a user) in a young open-source project, > they might be stymied in trying to work with Rust. At the moment, > step 0 in learning Rust may be learning how to use IRC. > > All this will, of course, improve with time. > > Lindsey _______________________________________________ Rust-dev > mailing list [email protected] > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev > > . >
David, I have not heard of other people using Rust for teaching, at least in communiques on the list. My advice, as someone who's run lab sessions for undergrads before, is to lock onto a particular version. Say, 0.7, as its coming out soon. You'll probably want to snapshot it and compile it for x86 & x64; if you have a server for your undergrads, it's probably best to call that the 'regulation' Rust. I think the docs for Rust are still underpowered for newbies. Perhaps you might want to write the authoritative book on Learn Programming With Rust in 24 Hours and make your fortune. ;-) At least, I would expect to have to provide exhaustive notes to students. Particularly if they are not familiar with languages such as OCaml, Haskell, F#, etc. On the bright side, I think teaching with Rust would be ideal for an Honors course and the top 20% of students would benefit immensely. It's entirely possible that the bottom 40% will flame out in a very distressingly impressive way due to the uncommon semantics and lack of a well trod "here's how you do it" path. I can't speak for the rest of the list, but I'd love to see an after-action report if you do teach a course with Rust. - -- Regards, Paul -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJRxm2ZAAoJEOKsXdnj/GaoE2YP/Rmjm33h72Xdb5TvIhSlRE0P sjB2GSVvksYNVH2MqTRity3pSw8soaIxOpxqyIhXAZ4jSYFt5bRKXynaJtvgL1hj TNI42c2EIw4OHdopOmpZc7LJ99Yk56s9JvMBMtB4HMc46BwB4vEFcQkqGIvW1l6h NOZPX2w8XiV5V30BPPUVSge3FbnPyAD9HGWJyH1A/Er4QByVYoQQMp/o487vt6oV CVrrRZJJoglkftaSrg/ajILv5ij4dnkF/tzW+nnS1xdu5ihgDgRP8Qmc0PIlxY0G QueZivm0dCzjINIUjySOrwdmwO+gB0VRHoyS/gqR2cJLrYYDpW+yQQ/LYHGSXhMf vJzU26C0XvB8yclJIznL+N6LhcEA0Gsh3e2AXRaAq1oat0LIdUUGd4mo3E5N36sl l10uYyRXNUzcLCrZHpGdvINcQRMn5ZRR3Fpuxoaie+acYuL34PfddVJt3QWlQJ/Q uhYueN4i+T4NHtE2xRvoyDYrqmdUxIj9dOPbVUl5bpq18WpQJLgdd/iNlbsHuUJa ZWNDxektBBLf3hmQiXc8Np+B0mJb8LyCHWuCY3H+YW9ktQAwSB/dvyKHzcaTVOo6 TdEIWTqcilgXx8Sy7XbAEkLQNbviZfYxvWH2tnSedQ7jkwmik5jwCQg8CWMthoCQ vZrcEMg9r72yLjV5qMvu =SfCY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Rust-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev
