On 01/31/2006 03:21 PM, Derek M Jones wrote:
Students find programming hard; there is a subset that enables people to write everything they need to;
By 'everything they need to', I take it you mean 'everything necessary for a passing grade'; I know all about tactical studying, and I don't confuse it with learning.
learning subset makes optimal use of time; don't foreign language courses teach the most common words and grammar usage first?
The best way to learn a foreign language is to speak it with native speakers. I stopped relying on what I was taught in German class at school once I found out that every railway station uses the term 'Gleis' to refer to platforms, and not 'Bahnsteig' as all the books claimed. That, alone, wasted about 20 minutes of my first day in Germany. Plus, it's valuable to know all the common swear words too, which my school books were oddly circumspect about.
Those going to to program professionally can always learn the crinkly bits later.
Then maybe we should stream the students: 'serious' versus 'need some credits in anything', and only neglect the second set. Besides which, are we just talking about teaching now? I thought the original request was for ordnance to smite the opponents of defensive programming, not for grease to squeeze students through educational pipes more efficiently. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
