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From: marc@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Marc[e] Sabatella)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: models (was Which language to teach first?)
Message-ID: <5160021@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: 1 Aug 89 21:58:10 GMT
References: <18814@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: HP Ft. Collins, Co.
Lines: 18

>The most important thing is LEAVING OUT spurious or unhelpful concepts,
>like line numbers in BASIC or pointers to functions returning arrays of
>structures containing pointers to functions returning... in C, or about
>half of PL/I. :-)  The simpler the better for an introductory language.

On the other hand, just because C *provides* this, doesn't mean you have to
teach it in a beginning class.

I could probably make a good argument for a language like Ada as a beginning
language - if you stick to basics it is as easy as Pascal (easier, really -
I think in/out is more intutive than "var"), and when it is time to learn
more advanced concepts (say, in a second or third course) you don't have to
switch languages.

--------------
Marc Sabatella
HP Colorado Language Lab (CoLL)
marc@hpmonk