Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!ogccse!blake!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!shuksan!scott
From: scott@shuksan.UUCP (Scott Moody)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Which language to teach first?
Message-ID: <1514@shuksan.UUCP>
Date: 24 Aug 89 20:15:38 GMT
References: <1501@shuksan.UUCP> <2633@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>
Organization: The Boeing Co., BAC MMST, Seattle, WA
Lines: 25

In article <2633@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>, nevin1@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (nevin.j.liber) writes:
> In article <1501@shuksan.UUCP> scott@shuksan.UUCP (Scott Moody) writes:
> >Remember that the first language you are taught in CS101 is also the 
> >main language you use throughout undergraduate education (outside of
> >the many languages course).
> 
> This bothers me.  Why should the first language you learn be your
> primary language throughout college?  Doesn't sound like a well-rounded
> CS education to me!  By using different languages, one learns different
> ways of thinking about their programming problems.  Sampling half a


I agree that a lot of different languages is best but for short 
quarter courses, learning a new language can be difficult. Remember
that it usually takes at least 1 quarter to learn Pascal, and even then
half the people are not experts yet (barely proficient).
So I think the best compromise is to start with a language that
can be used in some of the later courses. Introduce tasks during
an operating system course, or simulation course, etc. CASE Tools
for sw engineering courses, ...

My experience at the UWash was 1 language for most of the curriculum. Things
might have changed by now.

--scott