- Original Message -
From: "R Bartlett"
To: "S.A.Fincher"
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms
You may be interested to see some of the portfolios generated by
"chalk fa
- Original Message -
From: "Lindsay Marshall"
To: "R Bartlett" ; "Frank Wales"
;
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 9:34 AM
Subject: RE: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms
>Well this discussion all boils down to the role of educa
William Billingsley"
To: "Ppig-Discuss-List"
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:02 AM
Subject: Re: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms
This sounds like an interesting problem around the role of university
education.
Traditionally / ("in olden ti
>Well this discussion all boils down to the role of education. THere are two
>attitudes
You might only know of two, there
>1) We'll take your money, but really you shouldn't be on this course - we
>would like people who can already program so that we don't have to teach
>anything.
>or
If you k
>>>The people who don't learn are not motivated and not enthusiastic
>
>That is an incredibly complacent attitude, pedagogically. I'm not suprised
>to hear it, I'm afraid.
*sigh* You aren't listening are you?
L.
already program so that we don't
have to teach anything.
or
2) We'll take your money, and do the best we can with you.
- Original Message - From: "Frank Wales"
To:
Cc: "R Bartlett"
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 11:31 PM
Subject: Re: "Intuitivene
R Bartlett wrote:
Well this discussion all boils down to the role of education. THere are
two attitudes
1) We'll take your money, but really you shouldn't be on this course -
we would like people who can already program so that we don't have to
teach anything.
Even calibrating this discuss
s course - we
would like people who can already program so that we don't have to teach
anything.
or
2) We'll take your money, and do the best we can with you.
- Original Message -
From: "Frank Wales"
To:
Cc: "R Bartlett"
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 20
November 29, 2009 11:50 PM
Subject: RE: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms
us not consider them further. Consider all the motivated, enthusiastic
students who fail to program instead. They should be of concern.
I am not aware of anyone who is motivated and enthusia
>us not consider them further. Consider all the motivated, enthusiastic
>students who fail to program instead. They should be of concern.
I am not aware of anyone who is motivated and enthusiastic about programming
who fails to learn to program. The people who don't learn are not motivated and
R Bartlett wrote:
I think if you ask CS undergraduates who are not very good at
programming whether they want to program, the answer will change from
yes to no after a couple of months.
Let me chime in with an echo of what Lindsay said, and put it to you
that CS students who are, quote, "not v
rom: "Lindsay Marshall"
To: "R Bartlett" ; ;
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 10:09 PM
Subject: RE: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms
Ugh, I did a long reply to this and lost it by accident. Suffice to say
that I don't recognise any University I have
able to us).
L.
From: R Bartlett [ra.bartl...@ntlworld.com]
Sent: 29 November 2009 21:29
To: guzd...@cc.gatech.edu; Ppig-Discuss-List@open.ac.uk
Subject: Re: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms
I think if you ask CS undergraduates who are not very good at progr
very weak students, and nmaybe even switching them on.
It's early days yet, and hey! I'm biased, but I'll keep you informed. :-)
- Original Message -
From: guzd...@cc.gatech.edu
To: Ppig-Discuss-List@open.ac.uk
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 7:28 PM
Subject: Re:
Lindsay meant to "reply-all" to this, but only replied to me. I offered to
respond back to the list (with his message below), and he agreed.
I agree with Lindsay that most people don't want to program. There are reasons
for a universal level of (real) computing literacy, such as those described
On 11/27/09 7:35 AM, "Lindsay Marshall"
wrote:
>> Clearly programming _isn't_ intuitive for most people, but
>> people who are _now_ programmers often feel strongly that it is.
>> Why? Is there something we can use to reduce the CS1 failure rate?
>
> You reduce the failure rate by not letting in
-Original Message-
From: John Daughtry [mailto:j...@daughtryhome.com]
Sent: Fri 27/11/2009 14:07
To: Walter Milner
Cc: Ppig-Discuss-List
Subject: Re: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms
That is an
Richard O'Keefe wrote:
The most popular declarative language is SQL.
Perhaps the fact that it doesn't use recursion may be a factor
in its success?
Well, in theory (sic), it uses set theory instead, which is
just differently abstract from recursion and self-reference.
I frivolously suggest, ho
intuitiveness of imperative
> languages. I suspect this is a cover for the adolescent debate of 'my
> programming language is better than yours'.
>
>
>
> -Original Message-----
> From: Richard O'Keefe [mailto:o...@cs.otago.ac.nz]
> Sent: Fri 27/11/2009 00:26
>People presumably don't take CS1 papers unless they think they
>might do well, yet CS1 papers notoriously have a very high failure
>rate.
People take CS courses because their experience of computing has not so far
involved (real) programming and they think that it is all word documents and
ga
e intuitiveness of imperative languages. I
suspect this is a cover for the adolescent debate of 'my programming language
is better than yours'.
-Original Message-
From: Richard O'Keefe [mailto:o...@cs.otago.ac.nz]
Sent: Fri 27/11/2009 00:26
To: Alan Blackwell
Cc: Ppig-Discus
On Nov 27, 2009, at 12:19 AM, Alan Blackwell wrote:
So to summarise this whole discussion, based on text of your
previous message, it seems that you would like to know what
aspect of computer programming is, or ever could be "automatic,
without requiring conscious thought ... or rational proce
>"without requiring conscious thought ... or rational processes"
Sounds like most of the first year programming I see.
L.
So to summarise this whole discussion, based on text of your
previous message, it seems that you would like to know what
aspect of computer programming is, or ever could be "automatic,
without requiring conscious thought ... or rational processes"
Is that right?
I personally find this an interes
On Nov 26, 2009, at 12:40 AM, Lindsay Marshall wrote:
Ach, far too many posts to respond to in detail! So a summary.
1) I think that the idiosyncracies of computer arithmetic are
irrelevant to the idea of "intuition".
I cannot understand why.
The original claim that I'm responding is tha
Ach, far too many posts to respond to in detail! So a summary.
1) I think that the idiosyncracies of computer arithmetic are irrelevant to the
idea of "intuition". You can look at programming languages either in the
context of a particular implementation on a given machine or just as a language
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> a different syntax, and indeed Lisp-Flavored Erlang exists.
+1 for mentioning lfe; i wish somebody would do something similar for
ada some day.
On Nov 25, 2009, at 11:56 AM, Lindsay Marshall wrote:
On 24 Nov 2009, at 22:31, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
Please, let's not argue about words. Let's argue about semantics.
The fact of the matter is that people do have strong feelings about
what is intuitive and what is not, and that these feel
On Nov 25, 2009, at 11:16 AM, John Daughtry wrote:
With respect to such problems, I spent the usual amount of time in
college studying various complexities in arithmetic on computers.
Yet, I have only seen problems crop up three times over 10 years of
full-time programming experience.
You
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Raoul Duke wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Lindsay Marshall
> wrote:
>> I think this is a complete red herring. But there again so is the whole idea
>> of intuitiveness.
>
> agreed :-)
>
> my point (which might have been exactly the same as yours) was
On Nov 25, 2009, at 10:58 AM, Lindsay Marshall wrote:
e.g. a particular paradigm (e.g. imperative) makes sense to a given
individual, but then they get totally tripped up by the horribly
non-standard vs. math details (cf. limits on ranges of values).
Which is what I said earlier about exce
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 4:05 PM, Derek M Jones wrote:
> What I am trying to say is that Lindsay might only design a language
> that is intuitive to his declarative memory. When he gets to
> use it in practice he might not find it intuitive at all (ie, his
> procedural memory might not get on with
Raoul,
I'm sure Lindsay could design a language, but it might only be
an imagined intuitive-to-him language.
apologies if i misunderstand, but if you are saying that the devil is
in the details, i fully agree, and that is what i mean by logic being
non-intuitive, and similarly programming. in
> Derek M Jones writes:
> I'm sure Lindsay could design a language, but it might only be
> an imagined intuitive-to-him language.
apologies if i misunderstand, but if you are saying that the devil is
in the details, i fully agree, and that is what i mean by logic being
non-intuitive, and similarly
Raoul,
BTW I can't think of any programming languages that are intuitive, not even
slightly.
so here's another way for us to think about this: Lindsay, if you
could dream up an intuitive-to-you programming paradigm, what would it
be? (a subtextual theory i wonder might be relevant/hilighted
> BTW I can't think of any programming languages that are intuitive, not even
> slightly.
so here's another way for us to think about this: Lindsay, if you
could dream up an intuitive-to-you programming paradigm, what would it
be? (a subtextual theory i wonder might be relevant/hilighted in such
On Nov 25, 2009, at 7:43 AM, Raoul Duke wrote:
i believe that this train of thought should really be more widely
applied. the way i best learn algebra is perhaps not the same best way
the student next to be might learn it. yet our academics do little or
nothing to consider how best to engage wit
On 24 Nov 2009, at 22:31, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> Please, let's not argue about words. Let's argue about semantics.
> The fact of the matter is that people do have strong feelings about
> what is intuitive and what is not, and that these feelings are not
> idiosyncratic but widespread. That do
On Nov 24, 2009, at 10:23 PM, Lindsay Marshall wrote:
One thing that seems relevant to me here is that several of the
examples given to show the "non-intuitiveness" (whatever that means)
of languages are what I would class as exceptions : if the compiler
re-orders my (correct) code and mak
Maybe it is time to rewrite K-12 math books to be in line with computational
processing.
It would be great. Imagine dad at the dining room table trying to explain to
little Johnny... "100 Cheerios are here, and if we add another, we have -100
Cheerios."
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
With respect
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Lindsay Marshall
wrote:
> I think this is a complete red herring. But there again so is the whole idea
> of intuitiveness.
agreed :-)
my point (which might have been exactly the same as yours) was just
that if we are going to try to understand how an individual
>
>
> e.g. a particular paradigm (e.g. imperative) makes sense to a given
> individual, but then they get totally tripped up by the horribly
> non-standard vs. math details (cf. limits on ranges of values).
>
Which is what I said earlier about exception cases. But in reality most people
hardly
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> I wonder if the question of "intuitiveness" could be studied
> at the level of arithmetic rather than programming as a whole.
> For example, Smalltalk counts as OO-imperative, but has
> bignum and ratio arithmetic built in and standard: 6/
On Nov 24, 2009, at 9:35 PM, Derek M Jones wrote:
Brad,
like i said, i'm not sure intuition exists
What's quite certain is that *claims* of intuitiveness exist.
But do they only exist as a reason for justifying the use of
one particular language?
I don't think so. For one thing, in
> i believe that this train of thought should really be more widely
> applied. the way i best learn algebra is perhaps not the same best way
> the student next to be might learn it. yet our academics do little or
> nothing to consider how best to engage with a student.
Actually there is a huge am
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:35 AM, Derek M Jones wrote:
>> approach easier, and some of whom find another. From a teaching
>> point of view, would it be possible to offer two introductory
>> streams, one functional and one imperative, and let students
>> choose and/or transfer early?
>
> How could
>
> You've hit the nail on the head, Lindsay. This is why I ask
> people how they will measure intuition.
A simple but probably useless way of measuring intuition would be to show
people an interface (be it a programming language or a knob) and see how many
guesses it takes for them to use it
lindsay.marsh...@newcastle.ac.uk said:
> "intuitive" is either an empty description or one that is so
> highly personalised as to be meaningless. It falls far more
> into marketing than science.
You've hit the nail on the head, Lindsay. This is why I ask
people how they will measure intuition.
One thing that seems relevant to me here is that several of the examples given
to show the "non-intuitiveness" (whatever that means) of languages are what I
would class as exceptions : if the compiler re-orders my (correct) code and
makes it perform in a way that I did not intend then that is a
Brad,
like i said, i'm not sure intuition exists
What's quite certain is that *claims* of intuitiveness exist.
But do they only exist as a reason for justifying the use of
one particular language?
approach easier, and some of whom find another. From a teaching
point of view, would it
PM
To: keith gallagher
Cc: William Billingsley; Ppig-Discuss-List
Subject: Re: "Intuitiveness" of programming languages/paradigms
On Nov 24, 2009, at 3:18 AM, keith gallagher wrote:
> like i said, i'm not sure intuition exists
What's quite certain is that *claims* of intuit
On Nov 24, 2009, at 9:46 AM, Andrew Walenstein wrote:
On 23 Nov 2009, at 04:23, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
functional or logic programming. Since they didn't seem to be
familiar with the fairly wide gap between a typical first-year
model of how an imperative language and what _really_ happens
(e.
Richard,
www.knosof.co.uk/cbook/accu06.html
...
To my thinking the graphs in figure 1 show no effect of experience.
That means that interesting as the experiment was, it may not bear
on the question of whether there is empirical evidence that the
'imperative' paradigm is most intuitive.
It
On Nov 24, 2009, at 3:18 AM, keith gallagher wrote:
like i said, i'm not sure intuition exists
What's quite certain is that *claims* of intuitiveness exist.
I think it's possible to operationalise the concept.
Given languages of similar syntactic complexity,
which of several paradigms is
On Nov 24, 2009, at 2:38 AM, Ben Du Boulay wrote:
There was interesting work done in the 70s exploring how non-
programmers described in English tasks
that, in principle, might be turned into programs (see e.g. Lance A.
Miller, Thomas Green, John C. Thomas).
The experiments showed that neithe
On Nov 24, 2009, at 1:20 AM, Derek M Jones wrote:
Richard,
Does anyone know whether there's any empirical evidence either way
for the hypothesis
programmers find a programming language or paradigm
"intuitive" to the degree that it resembles what they
learned first
?
First of all yo
Alan Blackwell wrote:
1) What is the measure of 'intuitive' that you propose to use?
Asking for the measure is sage advice, I'd say, for a PhD candidate, but
the question that first flashes in my mind is whether intuition -- and
intuition in programming -- is a phenomena that can be identifie
Here is a research reference on prior knowledge aiding comprehension.
Ozuru, Y., Dempsey, K., & McNamara, D. S. (2009). Prior knowledge, reading
skill, and text cohesion in the comprehension of science texts. Learning and
Instruction, 19(3), 228-242.
Errol Thompson
Kiwi-ET Computing Consultancy a
> "Programmers find a programming language or paradigm
> 'intuitive' to the degree that it resembles what they learned
> first".
I believe educational literature and research would argue that 'Programmers
find a programming language or paradigm easier to learn to the degree that
they are able to
"Programmers find a programming language or paradigm 'intuitive' to
the degree that it resembles what they learned first". As is generally
the case with assertions, it isn't a matter of right/wrong, but a
matter of trade-offs.
I can't find a digital copy at the moment, but the following paper
desc
(forwarding my earlier direct reply to Richard)
[This is] A regularly recurring question, over the years of PPIG!
This has been the starting point for a number of PhDs, but a religious
war seldom makes a good PhD. I'm not aware that the results have ever
found anything very conclusive. Some o
When Lisp was introduced to us in 2nd year undergrad CS, the
professor promised it would be a relief to work with such an intuitive
language, which was designed to be written like we think. After a month or
so, most of us were wondering which planet does that "we" refer to.
Personally, I loved Lisp
There was interesting work done in the 70s exploring how non-
programmers described in English tasks
that, in principle, might be turned into programs (see e.g. Lance A.
Miller, Thomas Green, John C. Thomas).
The experiments showed that neither loops nor conditionals as often
employed in imperativ
Title: Keith Brian Gallagher, PhD
i'll bite
i'm not sure intuition exists. i went to dictionary.com and got this
about intuition: "the ability of the native speaker to make linguistic
judgments, as of
the grammaticality, ambiguity, equivalence, or nonequivalence of
sentences, deriving from the
If the plural of "anecdote" is "empirical evidence", then I'd suggest
it's not as simple as that. In Cambridge, the first language taught
was ML (a functional language). Over around five years, I tutored
around sixty students in Java, which was the second language taught
and also a compul
Richard,
Does anyone know whether there's any empirical evidence either way
for the hypothesis
programmers find a programming language or paradigm
"intuitive" to the degree that it resembles what they
learned first
?
First of all your question suggests that there is a one side fits
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