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From: pattis@cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Seeking Advice on Teaching C in Introductory Programming Course
Message-ID: <14032@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 7 Dec 90 02:48:26 GMT
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 19


  The Engineering College at the University of Washington plans to phase out
its "Introduction to Programming in FORTRAN" class, and instead switch to a
more "modern" language.  We are considering various posibilities (and we plan
to teach 1 week of FORTRAN at the end anyway).  This class will be taken by
every pre-engineering student.  We are on the quarter system, so the course
will last 10 weeks (4 hours/week).

I don't want to start a language-wars flame fest, but I would like to ask one
specific question: What experiences have instructors had teaching C in a
completely introductory course to a wide range of students?  I'm looking
for the details associated with answers like "We tried switching to C and
everything worked fine" or "We tried switching to C and ended up switching
back".

I will repost the mailings I get in a week or so; if you me mail that you
don't want reposted, please tell me.

Rich Pattis


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