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From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: First language taught in CSC degree track
Message-ID: <1308@killer.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Aug-87 21:25:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: killer.1308
Posted: Fri Aug  7 21:25:18 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Aug-87 07:18:34 EDT
References: <126@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Bayou Telecommunications
Lines: 35

in article <126@aiva.ed.ac.uk>, ken@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson) says:
> 
> Some readers may know that there has been considerable discussion of
> this topic in Scotland. The reason is that the Scottish Education Department
> has been specifying new examination requirements for Scottish schools.

> The chosen language is called "COMAL", which is a structured Basic. 
> It runs on the Commodore 64 and on the BBC Micro, to my knowledge.

Comal solves only half the problems of structured programming. It allows for
structured flow-of-control, via if-then-else, while loops, case statements,
recursive procedures, etc. However, it doesn't allow structured data. The only
complex data structure in Comal is the array. Shades of Fortran. This does not
allow you to easily build linked lists, queues, or other such things which
inevitably become necessary in the course of human events. Logo is a semi-good
choice. The only problem I've seen is that most microcomputer Logo
implementations have been toys, good enough for playing with turtle graphics,
but useless for more complex programs, due to the lack of file i/o, etc. I
know for a fact that Logo on the Commodore 64 is as close to useless as
software can be. I don't know if BBC's Logo is any better, but I really doubt
it. 

I haven't the foggiest notion what language you should teach in the place of
Comal, though. As I recall, most school districts use 6502-based
microcomputers, which rules out any "real" high level language such as "C" or
Pascal (well, at least usable implementations of such). Comal's not THAT bad
(I once programmed a small recursively-defined game in it -- worked great),
but certainly is no winner, either. My first inclination would be to advise
the purchase of "real" computers and use Pascal, but, I really doubt the
funding would be available for such a drastic step....
--
Eric Green   elg%usl.CSNET     Ollie North for President:
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg      A man we can believe (in).
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