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From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Which language to teach first?
Message-ID: <5407@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 1 Aug 89 15:23:44 GMT
References: <3876@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 18

In article <3876@shlump.nac.dec.com>, gentile@horsey.dec.com (Sam Gentile) writes:
> I think PASCAL is still the
> ideal first language for a student. It will expouse the student to the 
> concepts of pointers in a more friendly way than C and teach structured
> programming habits.

I agree. Pascal, as a teaching language, is close to ideal. It's pretty
conventional, hard to get lost in, and while it's fatally limited in the
I/O department that's not a big restriction for most teaching purposes.

Some people swear by LOGO or some other very high level language. I think
a wide variety of such languages should be presented to students, but
only after they're familiar with conventional data and control structures.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now
Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.   `-_-' |  writing is the sentence
Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today?  'U`  |  you are now reading"