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From: jbs@mit-eddie.UUCP (Jeff Siegal)
Newsgroups: net.lang.pascal,net.college
Subject: Re: pascal ass intro. language
Message-ID: <247@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Feb-86 18:02:42 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.247
Posted: Thu Feb 20 18:02:42 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 07:58:28 EST
References: <109@polyob.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbs@eddie.UUCP (Jeff Siegal)
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Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
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Xref: watmath net.lang.pascal:461 net.college:1090

In article <109@polyob.UUCP> hgoldber@polyob.UUCP (A1 harry goldberg ) 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

My opinion is that you shouldn't really be emphasizing the programming
language itself all that much anyway.  Students who want to get into
the details of a particular language can do so on their own.  

Instead, teach general techniques of good software development
(design, modularity, documentation, etc.).  

As for which programming language to use, it really depends on what
facilities you have available.  What coices to you have?  Many
courses which have chosen to teach Pascal have done so as an
alternative to BASIC, which sounds like a good idea to me.  There are
other (besides Pascal) reasonable choices though.

For a new (I think) idea in progressive teaching, how about using 3
or 4 languages, and allowing students to use whichever one they feel
most comfortable with (for projects and exam questions, etc.).

Jeff Siegal - MIT EECS