Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!labrea!rocky!mikey
From: mikey@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Mike Yang)
Newsgroups: soc.college,comp.edu
Subject: Re: First Language Taught in CSC degree track
Message-ID: <455@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Wed, 29-Jul-87 16:46:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocky.455
Posted: Wed Jul 29 16:46:42 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Jul-87 06:05:34 EDT
References: <1472@super.upenn.edu.upenn.edu> <3263@ncoast.UUCP> <1317@sputnik.COM> <2893@uw-june.UUCP>
Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department
Lines: 21
Keywords: language, CS 106 track, intro
Summary: First language taught at Stanford will be Ada.
Xref: mnetor soc.college:790 comp.edu:532

In article <2893@uw-june.UUCP>, jsnyder@uw-june.UUCP (J. R. Snyder) writes:
> In article <1317@sputnik.COM> talbot@tc.fluke.COM (Todd Smith) writes:
> >Why? Because Modula-2 is much better than Pascal when it
> >comes to modules and modular programming (In our implementation anyway) and
> >these courses (esp. B) are *very* module oriented.
> 
> Yup, those are the reasons, among others.  Another way of saying it is that
> Modula supports abstract data types better than Pascal.  (So does Ada,
> but it's clearly not suitable as a first tongue for many reasons.)
>

Actually, Todd's information was a little out of date.  Stanford was going
to switch to Modula-2, but has now decided to switch to Ada (yeech) as
the first language taught later next year. 

Apparently, the Assistant Chairman for Undergraduate Education at Stanford's
CS department feels that Modula-2 is on its way out.  I wonder if he's
aware of the many reasons why Ada is clearly not suitable as a first
tongue...

- Mike