Xref: utzoo misc.jobs.contract:350 comp.edu:3396 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!boulder!ccncsu!debussy.cs.colostate.edu!petersja From: petersja@debussy.cs.colostate.edu (james peterson) Newsgroups: misc.jobs.contract,comp.edu Subject: Re: Practicum courses Message-ID: <8016@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> Date: 23 Jul 90 15:39:12 GMT References: <3101@tellab5.tellabs.com> <1990Jul22.235418.7226@nmt.edu> Sender: news@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU Distribution: na Organization: Colorado State Computer Science Department Lines: 45 In article <1990Jul22.235418.7226@nmt.edu> john@nmt.edu (John Shipman) writes: >Mike Segel (segel@tellabs.com) writes (in misc.jobs.contract): >+-- >| At times I argued with some profs that they needed to teach >| C. Why? Because almost all of the industry was using it, and >| most of our upper level classes required it. His response was >| that "we are not a trade school" and that you can learn it on >| your own. >+-- This is interesting, since I have heard this same complaint here at Colorado State for years, and provided exactly the same response. There are further complications, since, for some reason, the general public appears to perceive C programming as the key to the "high paying job with a future." I can't recall how many calls I've had from people in the community, ranging from house-wives to auto mechanics, who want to take a course in C. Most often it turns out that they have no prior programming experience, and no interest in anything more than a C course which, they think, will open the door to riches beyond imagination. Most of my attempts to explain how wrong-headed this notion is are met with unvarnished hostility... As for our CS majors, for a couple of years now we have expected that, after three courses using Pascal, plus a couple of architecture courses, a normally intelligent student could learn C in a rather short time. I know students who have learned C with a great deal of facility in just three days. On the other hand, many students are simply too lazy to do this. At last we broke down and decided to offer a course in C. It would run one-half a semester (7 weeks) for 2 semester hours credit. It is purely an elective course for CS majors -- no credit towards the major. And to take care of the match-book problem, it has two pascal courses (ACM1 and ACM2) as prerequisites -- it cannot practically be taken without prior programming in a language with dynamic storage allocation and some operational data structures. I welcome comment on this and remain interested in what others do.... -- james lee peterson petersja@handel.cs.colostate.edu dept. of computer science colorado state university "Some ignorance is invincible." ft. collins, colorado 80523