Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ut-sally!utah-cs!defun.utah.edu!shebs
From: shebs%defun.utah.edu.uucp@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: American Programmer
Message-ID: <5367@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: 23 Mar 88 21:51:49 GMT
References: <555@psu-cs.UUCP> <1434@ur-tut.UUCP> <3415@bunker.UUCP> <5359@utah-cs.UUCP> <36845UH2@PSUVM>
Sender: news@utah-cs.UUCP
Reply-To: shebs%defun.utah.edu.UUCP@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs)
Organization: PASS Research Group
Lines: 24

In article <36845UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes:

>[...]  Imagine this freshman programming
>course---start with data flow diagrams, strucutre charts, and walk-throughs---
>add egoless programming---teach symbolic debuggers and syntax directed editors
>from day one.

Sounds good to me...  The main objection that comes to mind is the increased
volume of material.  If you go to a simpler language like Scheme (flame flame)
then you would have to spend less time on random syntax and semantics.

Another thought that comes to mind is that courses of study in many
disciplines are extremely long, lasting perhaps several years before
the students are ready to do things on their own (think about when EEs
do their first nontrivial circuit designs).  In CS, it seems to be assumed
that one intro course and one data structures course makes an educated
programmer, and everything after that can be electives.  On the other
hand, while I "know" that students should understand the theory of sorted
algebras before writing an abstract data type, I don't "feel" that so
much theory is essential to training professional software engineers.
A dilemma...

							stan shebs
							shebs@cs.utah.edu