On Wednesday 15 March 2006 8:42 am, Kevin D. Clark wrote: > Tom Buskey writes: > > Some would find a CS program that started with C and never taught > > Pascal to be odd. > > My formal CS education started with ML, went to LISP, then Modula-2, > and then C. > > We could quibble over all of the details of CS curriculum, but I just > find a program that never really teaches C over the course of 4 years > to be a little bit odd, that's all. > > I don't necessarily think that C should be a first language either. I agree that C should not be a first language.
IMHO, I think that Pascal is an excellent language to teach basic programming skills as well as data structures, which is what Wirth really designed it for. (I learned FORTRAN as my first language in 1965). The problem with both C and Java in this context is that both are (or can be) very cryptic. The problem with teaching Pascal is that it is not really used in the industry. So, if the objective of a programming course is to teach the students a specific skill they can use, then Pascal is probably not a good choice, but IMHO, the schools should teach the important aspects of computer programming, including data structures early, then once a student learns the first language, then transition that student to a real-world language. -- Jerry Feldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9 _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
