On Fri, 17 Aug 2001, Chuck McManis wrote:
> Sounds like Italy (the driving anyway!) I do recall that when I learned to
> program in Fortran the school had a you send a deck of cards in that they
> would run and then you would get your results back. It did make you stop
> and think. Still I have to agree that teachers have a lot more influence
> than language environment.
Reminds me:
I had a student in the mid/late 80s, who "obviously didn't have the
prerequisites". She didn't know what a source file was, what an object,
nor executable file was, hadn't ever heard of a "compiler" nor a "linker".
But, it turned out that she had a decent grasp of algorithms. It
turned out that she had had multiple programming language courses at Cal
State Hayward, where she had learned the words "deck" and "results".
I confronted one of the profs there, and asked him why they didn't at
least teach their students about compilers. His response: "that's for
TECHNICIANS and OPERATORS. Computer scientists don't need to know that
petty stuff."
> You should meet Mike Kahn. He used an HP1600A and bascially started poking
> around inside a Nintendo to make it do mysterious things. It made for a
> very interesting VCF exhibit even if maybe only 15% of the people seeing it
> understood what was going on.
Well, there are also some minor issues of communication.
Mike's social skills are as bad as those of the rest of us.
> >you have to start at the bottom and work your way up. I would never start
> >a student off in a rigorous, structured environment. What a perfect way
> >to turn them off.
> This is very true, let someone get a feel for just how wide open the
> choices are when programming and then introduce them to the most efficient
> way to get the results they want.
Keep in mind that students don't need to continue to use the language
that they started with for the rest of their careers!
If they start with one language and then very early on, switch to another,
then they have the possibility of NOT developing baby duck syndrome, and
of haviong a better understanding of how languages work.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin_at_xenosoft.com
Received on Sun Aug 19 2001 - 13:02:17 BST