At 22:23 26/05/2006, Ian Bicking wrote: > > Not many scientists and engineers learn C or sh any more. ABC's > > developers had the right idea. > >Yes, but they learn C++ and Java and things like that.
You wish. As part of my project I did a brief survey of what physics departments used to teach programming (research that didn't make it into the final report due to space). Most offered only an introductory course, often less than 1 lab a week for 10 weeks. C was still popular (as was Fortran) but I argue that due to the lack of time the scientists and engineers don't learn these languages, they learn enough to complete the exercises to finish the course. Not because they're inherantly lazy, but because there's way too much material to cover in the pitifully small time allocated. I wish it were different, but despite computational work being one of the important methods of research in physics, programming is not seen as a key part of a physics degree. And I thorougly concur with the comment about it being taught by the previous generation: many who were in charge of teaching or planning the computer modules had been using computers in the 1960's - which doesn't make it wrong, but provides a different outlook on today's systems. Peter _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig