Hi Tim, > > > For his school computing course, my son has been told he needs to > > > download Visual Studio 2017 onto a Windows PC, to write some > > > simple programs in vb.net. We don't have any Windows machines
It used to be Linux users were the odd ones out and everyone else had a Windows PC at home. Then that became a Windows laptop. But these days I'm seeing more homes without any PCs because tablets and phones are preferred by the public and do everything they want. So it's still possible a pupil won't have Windows at home, but that's because they'll have Android or iOS devices, or the Jones's will have an iMac Pro. This suggests to me the trend for being able to run VB.Net is in downwards. Do they not have a Windows PC lab where you can check in at lunch time or after school, like the wall of Commodore PETs and then BBC Masters in my day? Beats standing outside on a cold day, even if you get locked in and have to climb out a window... I poked about AQA's site for GCSE Computer Science a bit, to see if they're explicit about the programming language. https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/computer-science-and-it/gcse/computer-science-8520 The closest I could find were https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/computer-science-and-it/gcse/computer-science-8520/subject-content For the programming project we will support the following programming languages: C#, C++, C Java Pascal/Delphi Python (versions 3 and 2) VB.Net. and the Summary of Changes PDF listed on https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/computer-science-and-it/gcse/computer-science-8520/planning-resources The number of languages available for programming project is restricted to 5: C#, Java, Pascal, Python and VB.Net. Bit odd they lump C#, C++, and C together. That's like associating Java and Javascript. Perhaps their PDF is more accurate, giving just C#. Of those, Python is the clear winner for education. The first two are too complex and would put off pupils, (and programmers!), Pascal died with Borland, and VB.Net was just to coerce VB programmers into .Net even though the languages are different in many ways. Python's cross-platform, even the GUI too with TkInter. It's common on the Raspberry Pi. The BBC micro:bit uses the MicroPython derivative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro:bit It's no contest out of those. https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/computer-science-and-it/gcse/computer-science-8520/teaching-resources is interesting. PDFs for lots of topics to cover, e.g. Huffman code. And Python syntax code cards for Coding Club. Nothing for VB.Net, Java, ... So perhaps it's the school's choice to plump for VB.Net rather than the examination board's syllabus? I hope it's not the school's governors identifying that's what industry requires; as John said, VB.Net is decaying fast and legacy/maintenance now. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2018-10-02 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk / CHECK IF YOU'RE REPLYING Reporting bugs well: http://goo.gl/4Xue / TO THE LIST OR THE AUTHOR
