Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!ritcv!mjl
From: mjl@ritcv.UUCP (Mike Lutz)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: American Programmer
Message-ID: <309@ritcv.UUCP>
Date: 28 Mar 88 02:08:21 GMT
References: <555@psu-cs.UUCP> <1434@ur-tut.UUCP> <3415@bunker.UUCP> <5359@utah-cs.UUCP> <36845UH2@PSUVM>
Reply-To: mjl@ritcv.UUCP (Michael Lutz)
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
Lines: 30

In article <36845UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes:
>
>I have been trying to make this point here.  Imagine this freshman programming
>course---start with data flow diagrams, strucutre charts, and walk-throughs---
>add egoless programming---

Problem: it's awfully hard to motivate freshmen (or anyone else who hasn't
worked on large programming projects) of the importance of these techniques
(or even what the techniques really mean).  They have know experience base
to fall back on; no examples to provide a context for understanding any
of this.  Or, as a colleague once said "We try to expose students to all
of these important concepts, only to find that most of them are immune."

>teach symbolic debuggers and syntax directed editors
>from day one.

No! no! no! If you want anyone to learn the discipline of program
design, then the *last* thing you want them to have is a fancy
debugging environment.  That is, unless your idea of modern programming
practice is to spend most of your time debugging sloppily conceived
code.  Make debugging easy and attractive, and I guarantee that's the
message you'll send the next generation of CS grads!  I'm in full
agreement with Harlan Mills here - we definitely need better tools, but
interactive debuggers are not in this class.

Mike Lutz
-- 
Mike Lutz	Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY
UUCP:		{allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!mjl
CSNET:		mjl%rit@csnet-relay.ARPA