Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!ginosko!uunet!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Which language to teach first?
Message-ID: <5901@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 28 Aug 89 14:05:17 GMT
References: <2450@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> <6278@hubcap.clemson.edu> <6907@cognos.UUCP>
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 19

In article <6907@cognos.UUCP>, rossj@cognos.UUCP (Ross Judson) writes:
> [about CS students]  Give them a taste of the future.  If the rest of
> the world is too archaic or immutable to develop the tools of the future,
> perhaps that will persuade them to perform the work themselves.

This can be interpreted as saying that students should be treated as magic
tools for turning parchment into neat software. Now, I'm not saying that
you hold this attitude, but it does seem prevalent in the academic
community.

As I mentioned to someone else in private mail, students are people. Treating
them as purely a resource for change does them a disservice. If this is your
primary criterion for choosing a language to teach students, then I hope
you're not in a position to make that choice.
-- 
Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-'
"Just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that isn't immune to bullets"  'U`
   -- The Brigadier, Dr Who.