Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!math.fu-berlin.de!dww From: dww@math.fu-berlin.de (Debora Weber-Wulff) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Language Use Keywords: C,Ada,Pascal,C++,Other? Message-ID: Date: 18 Mar 91 18:21:09 GMT References: <1150@ra.MsState.Edu> Sender: news@math.fu-berlin.de (Math Department) Organization: Free University of Berlin, Germany Lines: 36 Here in Berlin at the Free University we just have a program for minors and for teacher certification in "Informatics". The first semester is taught Miranda (a functional language) so that all the students, those with programming experience and those without (i.e. BASIC freaks... <--- flame!) are all at the same level. This works rather well, although it is difficult to motivate further because Miranda is not used in industry or in the schools. The big project last semester was to write a text formatter in Miranda, the students were quite enthusiastic about it. The Miranda system works quite well, it is more robust than the Hope system that was tried a few years ago (before my time, I don't know details). In later semesters MODULA-II is taught as the imperative language. Some students complain that they would rather learn Pascal, but on the whole they are enthusiastic, and even try and introduce MODULA-II into the schools. I am somewhat mystified by the statement to the effect that Pascal is not used in industry: I spent 4 years writing library information systems in a Pascal dialect with modules and most of the ISO stuff, and got a good feeling for the industrial potential: with the right collection of interfacers (window stuff, a good database interface, an abstract data type procedure/function generator, etc.) we got a lot done. And as much as we cussed at the strong type checking - as soon as we tried to get around it mit tricky modules, etc. we fell flat on our collective noses! -- Debbie -- Debora Weber-Wulff snail: FU Berlin, ZI Fachdidaktiken, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, W-1000 Berlin 33 email: weberwu@inf.fu-berlin.de, dww@math.fu-berlin.de