Re: Teaching programming

From: Jonathan G Campbell (jg.campbell_at_ntlworld.com)
Date: 04/06/04 

Date: 6 Apr 2004 02:16:45 -0700

Nick Landsberg <hukolau@NOSPAM.att.net> wrote in message news:<9dWbc.33914$He5.647295@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>...
> Jon,
>
> A very good posting. I will only reply to one point
[...]
> >
> > One major **problem [typo]** in teaching programming was touched on in the original
> > 'Java'
> > thread, that is, that students are expected to engage in design
> > (construction) of programs quite early in their education. Recall that
> > this was contrasted with the practice in civil engineering. And, I
> > think, the same could be said of electronics engineering, i.e. that
> > the
> > early part of education concentrates on analysis.
> >
>
> The difference may very well be that in both of these disciplines,
> the cost of a mistake is relatively high. For example,
> putting up a nominally 1-inch thick board to span 12 feet
> and expecting it to take the weight of a set of
> of the Encyclopaedia Britannica would cause the board
> to fall or break. Similarly, putting a CPU chip on a
> circuit board and applying too much voltage to it
> would "fry" the CPU. In both cases you would have
> a cost to replace the failed component.
> Thus, analysis before the fact is almost mandatory.

I think that could be a (very practical) part of it. In a final year
(electronics, in 1972) project I blew an op. amp. integrated circuit
-- I belew no more because the budget was spent, and I was back to
transistors.

>
> Programming, on the other hand, does not usually
> incur those costs. Therefore, it is very tempting
> to have the attitude "let's try this and see if
> it works." The problem is exacerbated by the
> plethora of tools available which give the dilletante
> the impression that they know "programming"
> because they could make the computer do what
> they wanted it to do (possibly only in this one case).
> [Your Shakespeare and monkeys analogy was
> quite to the point.]
>
> Would the ability to knock together a doghouse
> make someone qualified to build even a one-family
> home? A small office complex? A skyscraper?
> A suspension bridge?
>

[useful stuff snipped]

A great many university computing departments (even some that call
themselves computer science) do what is little more than slightly
warmed up business studies. Hence there is no attitude of professional
responsibility that one might find in a practically oriented
engineering department. Nor the scientific rigour that one would find
in a science department. I recently wrote a research paper with a
biological scientist -- it was a learning exercise (to put it mildly)
to compare our attitudes to experimental results and evidence; cf.
academic journals on computing related topics.

Best regards,

Jon C.

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