Xref: utzoo comp.edu:2375 comp.lang.misc:3194
Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!sce!cognos!alanm
From: alanm@cognos.UUCP (Alan Myrvold)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Which language to teach first?
Message-ID: <6705@cognos.UUCP>
Date: 1 Aug 89 13:10:37 GMT
References: <8514@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Reply-To: alanm@cognos.UUCP (Alan Myrvold)
Followup-To: comp.lang.misc
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 34

In article <8514@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> lacey@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu 
 (John Lacey) writes:
>My school is currently using an old VAX (11/750) and VAX Pascal in its
>CS courses.  In the last 2 years, one of the professors (the best one
>:-) ) has offered a course using Abelson & Sussman^2 as the text, with
>TI's PC Scheme on 8088/MS-DOS machines.  This course, however, is offered
>as an upper level elective.

I would say that Scheme is the ideal language to learn first, but
having purchased TI's PC Scheme for my own 8088/MS-DOS machine, I 
might argue that the performance (even at 10MHz with a hard disk)
makes the language nearly unusable --- it really deserves a fast
'386 box -- or a workstation.

I'd personally like to see Pascal disappear as a first programming
language .... omitting support for separate compilation of units
means that it's tough to talk about writing/using subroutine
libraries (I'd rather teach Fortran or C!!!). Writing code that
others can use, and using other peoples code MUST be taught 
early.

I've heard folk who'd like to see APL as the first language learned 
... but I find my own APL code hard to decipher after a few hours
(even with liberal use of lamps!).

                                          - Alan

A subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will nether advise
nor submit to arbitrary measures. JUNIUS
---
Alan Myrvold          3755 Riverside Dr.     uunet!mitel!sce!cognos!alanm
Cognos Incorporated   P.O. Box 9707          alanm@cognos.uucp
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