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From: schuh@geowhiz.UUCP (David Schuh)
Newsgroups: net.lang.pascal,net.college
Subject: Re: pascal ass intro. language
Message-ID: <367@geowhiz.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Feb-86 02:27:52 EST
Article-I.D.: geowhiz.367
Posted: Mon Feb 24 02:27:52 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Feb-86 08:20:56 EST
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Reply-To: schuh@geowhiz.UUCP (David Schuh)
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In article <717@ihwpt.UUCP> crocker@ihwpt.UUCP (ron crocker) writes:
>> *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
>> am interested to hear pros and conss about using pascal as the 
>> language in which to teach introductory programming
>
>I think PASCAL is a good choice for an introductory programming
>language, but others are fine.  What PASCAL offers that some other
>languages do not is:
>1) recursion 
> ...
>2) strong type checking
> ...
>3) data structures.  By having an introduction to simple data
> ...
>PASCAL has drawbacks (I/O for one) but is a better choice than
>BASIC for an introductory course, in my opinion.
>
>Ron Crocker
>
	Folks interested in which language to use in introductory classes,
might recall that Pascal was disigned specifically as an instructional
language intended to promote the good programing practices we all know
and love.  I started out with BASIC and have given much thought to whether
that was the right choice as an intro class and language.  The answer I
reached is that it was not.  If I were teaching an intro class intended
for cs majors I would avoid like the plague BASIC or any language that has
things like self declarations, or lack of self defined data structures 
value/formal parameters, strong type checking or procedures/functions etc ... .

	Sure pascal has drawbacks, especially if your undertaking vlarge projects
(standard pascal at least) and its string manipulations are somewhat stilted.
It wasnt really intended as a systems language but its popularity became so
great that people used it anyway. Hence several versions with extensions to make
those things possable.  However these restrictions are probably a blessing for
for beginning programers.

   So my recomendation is pascal with a strong emphasis on good programing
practices.

-- dave schuh
!uwvax!schuh

PS. Well a language pascal like benifits would also be suitable (modula perhaps)
Just avoid Basic and fortran for sure.