It's not about the industry.
Learning to program is about a methodolgy and a mindset, not
whether you can write line noise in perl or get your head round
inherited classes or polymorphism or whatever.
Python is an excellent learning language. It's designed for
teaching, it's OO, it's high level enough not to look like
machine code even before it's compiled, etc.
Once you have the basics of programming learnt, then you can go
into C++/Java/C.
My �0.02...
-Thom
On Wed, Dec 13, 2000 at 11:05:01 +1100, Peter said:
> What is the purpose of this course ? What is the target audience ? Are
> there any prior learnings ? What are the desired learning outcomes ?
>
> Are you doing this to just give students a feel for code cutting ? Do
> you want to teach a language that is in demand ? ( maybe this is not a
> consideration re: FORTRAN)
>
> If you are trying to prepare people for a life as code cutters in the
> real world and a requirement is that thay be oo code cutters then C++ is
> the go. My experience with programmers is that if they can get their
> head around the oo concepts(polymorphism indeed) and they write some
> reasonable stuff in C++ then they can make the jump to perl PHP et al
> without much trouble.
>
>
> People I talk to in the industry go "Py what" every time I mention
> Python.
>
> just my $00.02 worth.
>
> Peter
>
> Geoffrey Robertson wrote:
> >
> > I'm currently preparing a 1 semester programming course for
> > beginners. (on Linux) And I'm in a quandary as to what
> > to teach.
> >
> > The previous two semesters I've taught 9 weeks of C followed by
> > a 9 week mish mash of Perl, PerlTk, Fortran, C++, Python, whatever.
> > see:
> > http://slug.org.au/tafe2000.shtml
> >
> > Next semester I'm thinking of teaching 9 weeks of C++ and 9 weeks of
> > Python. For a change. I'll be learning as I teach.
> >
> > Which should I teach first, Python or C++ ?
> >
> > Neither? what then?
> >
> > If any one has suggestions as to where th e best place to start
> > learning to program is I'd be interested in your comments.
> >
> > geoffrey
> >
> > --
> > SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
> > More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
>
>
> --
> SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
> More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
