Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!glacier!SU-Russell!goldberg From: goldberg@SU-Russell.ARPA (Jeffrey Goldberg) Newsgroups: net.cse,net.college Subject: Re: pascal ass intro. language (A vote for C) Message-ID: <228@SU-Russell.ARPA> Date: Sun, 2-Mar-86 04:53:32 EST Article-I.D.: SU-Russe.228 Posted: Sun Mar 2 04:53:32 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 3-Mar-86 01:35:38 EST References: <192@bu-cs.UUCP> <4253@ut-sally.UUCP> <497@looking.UUCP> <528@tekcbi.UUCP> <4346@ut-sally.UUCP> Reply-To: goldberg@SU-Russell.UUCP (Jeffrey Goldberg) Organization: Center for Study of Language and Information, Stanford Lines: 74 Xref: watmath net.cse:654 net.college:1173 Summary: C used for literacy course at UCSC In article <4346@ut-sally.UUCP> ark@sally.UUCP (Arthur M. Keller) writes: [Some stuff deleted here, basically Keller was expressing the need for expressing algorithms, structure, etc. a vote for Pascal] > >On the other hand, if you are teaching a "computer literacy" course, >that is, a primarily non-programming course, it may be worthwhile to >use Basic because the start up costs are low, programming is a minor >part of the course, and you are not attempting to teach programming >concepts but rather have the students write a few trivial programs. At UC Santa Cruz the computer literacy course used C. This was a required course for some students who had no background with computing at all. We started with "This is a terminal, and that is a computer. Try not to get them confused." and finshed with recursive function calls. Along the way we taught vi and a little nroff, binary arithmatic, manipulating files and directories (on BSD4.2), tr, diff, grep, head, tail, and other filters, and extremely small bit of shell programming (they never had to write any), and some C. All of this was done in a 10 week course with 200 students, two instuctors, and 15 undergraduate TAs (I was one of them). The course was went over very well. (there were problems, but they were the result of a group of students who thought that they course would be so easy that they would never need to come to class (and I mean 'never').) We used C for three reasons. 1) Structured programming 2) We could show them that what they were writing was (in some ways) no different from the programs they had been using earlier in the quarter. This 'demystifies' things like nothing else can, and that is what a computer literacy course is all about. 3) We wanted something close enough to the machine to force people to think about the machines representation of the data. I.e. What is the machine really doing? The course was taught by two linguistics faculty, and about half of the TAs were linguistics students; the rest were CS. The intro CS series uses Pascal (those wimps) which is no doubt an improvement overwhat they used to teach: ALGOL W. (Actually, I don't know anything about ALGOL; I've just heard lots of complaints.) The point is is that if you don't scare them, they can learn a lot. Also, there were some people who were turnd on to computing as a result of this course. I don't think they would have been if we used BASIC. Nor were the bound to end up programming through other routes. One was a literature major the other theater. >Pascal is also a problem for students who have not yet mastered high >school algebra ... Don't you have entrance requirements at your school? (Actually, I'm all for certain sorts of special admission, but there are remedial courses that special admittees are supposed to take first.) >Arthur -Jeff PS: I leave the "wimps" comment in with reservations. There are plenty of good Pascal programmers out there, and I am intending a little friendly rivalry and nothing more serious than that. If anyone wants to get into the old C vs. Pascal debate just mark you subjects accordingly so I don't have to read any of what we have all seen enough times before. The "wimps" comment is purely :-) . -- /* ** Jeff Goldberg (best reached at GOLDBERG@SU-CSLI.ARPA) */