Re: STL Usage [Re: My brains have gone dry and flakey ...]

From: Anthony Borla (ajborla_at_bigpond.com)
Date: 12/13/04 

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 09:02:59 GMT

"Francis Glassborow" <francis@robinton.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:sDvkuwJp8XuBFw61@robinton.demon.co.uk...
> In article <31tasiF3e7u6mU1@individual.net>, "Chris ( Val )"
> <chrisval@bigpond.com.au> writes
> >I would hazard to guess, that most students who drop
> >out of programming classes early on in their study,
> >are probably the ones who stated out with the gruelling
> >low level stuff first :-)
>
> Yes, while I am very much against the modern trend to pursue
> 'instant gratification at all cost' I am also against the principle
> of 'limit access to knowledge to those who are willing to "knock
> on the gate" for many months.'
>

This isn't what I was advocating, merely a more systematic way of presenting
knowledge, and one that wouldn't exclude other approaches.

>
> A student deserves to have something to show for the investment
> of their time, and to show early enough so that they feel motivated
> to invest more time.
>

Agreed.

I daresay this is one reason that Java has become such a popular teaching
language over the past few years: it's combination of in-built GUI and
network programming support make it relatively easy to provide such
feedback.

It's a shame that a similar 'standard' library offering wasn't developed for
C++. This needn't have been as formal as the efforts in C++ standardisation,
but could have consisted of 'officially recommendating' [thus encouraging,
though not mandating] different library combinations for different
platforms. Such a move may have ensured that C++ remained *the* [commercial]
teaching language of choice.

I daresay it is for similar reasons that scripting languages like Python
have become more popular. By offering a rich library [like Java], and
dispensing with the teaching of many lower-level issues like types,
pointers, header files, or even the steps of compiling and linking, students
are able to 'do more with less', hence obtain quicker, richer feedback to
spur further programming efforts.

Cheers,

Anthony Borla

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is MCSD worth doing?
    ... >>and programming simultaneously in the first semester. ... And C is definitely NOT a first language despite ... with pointers, pointers to pointers and type casts. ... "to make it easier on the students" ("to make it ...
    (microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcsd)
  • Re: OT: Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math
    ... of language learning from year 1 in the state sector. ... although there are also examples of teaching Physics, Mathematics, ... Courses for students preparing for teaching in a foreign ...
    (alt.guitar.amps)
  • Re: The Promise of Forth
    ... John says the only testable hypothesis that has been proposed, ... Forth as it is used is inadequate for professional programming ... The first day of Fortran class in 1969, I was taught that the purpose of a programming language is to put the power of the computer in the hands of users so they can bypass the priesthood. ... students used PL/I and Lisp, while engineers used Fortran and BASIC. ...
    (comp.lang.forth)
  • Re: CL failure stories?
    ... The post was to a thread on the best language for beginner ... I proposed that the programming language course ... The designer of an integrated curriculum must ... Perhaps a pattern matching capability might help the students ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard
    ... >> languages and expect his students to follow. ... first year students to the concepts of structured programming from the ... > in that language. ... at UC Berkeley we use Scheme in our first introductory ...
    (sci.crypt)
Loading