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From: beth@brillig (Beth Katz)
Newsgroups: soc.college,comp.edu
Subject: Re: First Language Taught in CSC degree track
Message-ID: <7821@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Aug-87 15:17:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: mimsy.7821
Posted: Sat Aug  1 15:17:19 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Aug-87 10:12:35 EDT
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Reply-To: beth@brillig.UUCP (Beth Katz)
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science
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Xref: mnetor soc.college:796 comp.edu:538

One practical reason for not using Ada as the first language
is that most students run their programs through the compiler
over and over again to get rid of syntactic and semantic bugs.
You need fast compilers with descriptive error messages to
handle this type of load.  You also need a compiler that will
not swamp your machine right before assignments are due.  And
that compiler should be affordable and available on the machines
you use for classes.

Although I haven't checked into Ada compilers lately (I'm not
teaching Ada now, and the Ada compiler I am using for research
works well on the Vax and Sun), I don't think you'll find an
Ada compiler today that meets those requirements.  The best
(and closest to correct) Ada compilers are not cheap, and they
tend to run on Vaxes.

When I taught an upperlevel course on software design and
development with Ada, we had to use a research machine because
there wasn't a compiler available for our usual teaching machines
(IBM 4341 and Sperry 1100 whatever).  To keep the class from
overwhelming the Vax, we limited simultaneous Ada compiles for
class members (and kept it lower than we probably needed to, but
that was the agreement).  I thought the error messages were pretty
good, but some of my students complained.

Although I use both Ada and C for my own work, I don't believe
either is the best language for a first programming class.  I
tend to prefer Maryland's approach to teaching the mathematical
foundations of programming with a small subset of a language.
Mastery of English (or one's native language) is essential.

				Beth Katz
				Dept. of Computer Science
				Univ. of Maryland - College Park
				beth@brillig.umd.edu