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From: toddf@petsd.UUCP (Todd Feldman)
Newsgroups: soc.college,comp.edu
Subject: First Language Taught in CS Track
Message-ID: <1096@petsd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Aug-87 13:35:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: petsd.1096
Posted: Thu Aug  6 13:35:04 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Aug-87 14:22:59 EDT
Organization: Perkin-Elmer DSG, Tinton Falls, N.J.
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I must say, as an undergraduate CS student, I think Ada is a
fine language to teach and one of the most important to be taught,
but I am very leary of teaching it to beginning CS students, especially
those who are just taking the intro course as a distribution requirement
or something like that.  However, if features like tasking, representation,
and such are avoided in the beginning class, it is a great idea to 
expose students to Ada early on.  Having had many years of computer 
experience, I personally couldn't picture learning Ada in its full glory
without having learned a language like Pascal or Modula-2 first.  Ada is
just too huge and too complex.