Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!imagine!pawl17.pawl.rpi.edu!jefu From: jefu@pawl17.pawl.rpi.edu (Jeffrey Putnam) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: What is CS? (Was re First languages) Message-ID: <643@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> Date: 10 Apr 88 12:28:24 GMT References: <3684@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <568@abcom.ATT.COM> <612@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <4871@ecsvax.UUCP> Sender: news@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU Reply-To: jefu@pawl17.pawl.rpi.edu (Jeffrey Putnam) Organization: RPI Public Access Workstation Lab - Troy, NY Lines: 98 In article <4871@ecsvax.UUCP> hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) writes: >In article <612@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU>, jefu@pawl18.pawl.rpi.edu (Jeffrey Putnam) writes: >> In article <4859@ecsvax.UUCP> hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) writes: >> >In article <607@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU>, jefu@pawl23.pawl.rpi.edu (Jeffrey Putnam) writes: >> >> ... (among other stuff relating to my proposal that programming be taught to all incoming freshmen) > We might get into some controversy over what is a "real" programming >language - Is an object oriented programming language a "real" one - >how about hypertalk - or some of the 4GL database languages? While >I have a gut feeling that only the procedural languates are "real" >(they certainly do relate to the way computer work - they kind of >reflect it) but wonder if we shouldn't raise above that. 1/2 :-) I think an object oriented programming language like CLOS (is that what Common Loops mutated to?) with an interface to a window system where graphics can be done (X or NeWS by preference) would be close to ideal. The algorithmic nature of the beast is evident, but the advantages to inheritance would make the actual coding less tedious. Let me back off just a bit and try to explain again why i proposed a universal programming requirement and answer a couple of the questions and problems that people have brought up. My experience has been that a great part of the students in american higher education have a reasonable depth of specialized knowledge by the time they leave college and are almost completely ignorant outside their fields. There are reasons for this and they are good ones given the current cultural situation. One is certainly that universities are acting as vocational schools (even strongly academicly/research oriented schools are acting as vocational schools - where the vocation is getting research dollars (as opposed to actually doing interesting research)). However, although this probably keeps industry (more or less) content it is doing a great disservice to the students. We can see this clearly in technical programs (like CS) but it is also true in the liberal arts fields, although the training there is wider in spectrum. I think it would be of more use to all students to have more exposure to _all_ fields, including non-technical fields for technical students and technical fields for non-technical students. However, since I doubt that people who avoided algebra in high school would be able to handle a calculus (or other reasonable math) course, I think that a minimal exposure to at least a kind of mathematics can be achieved with programming. (In the best of all possible worlds, i would assume a reasonable high school background and require a real math, a real science, a real philosophy course etc). Programming is also useful (ouch!), and not just with spreadsheets. Several times in the last month or two I have talked to people with computer problems that could easily have been solved with minimal programming experience and the availability of a programming language on their machines, but that were very difficult without these. I also talked to someone who could have solved a problem easily with a product (LaTeX) that required embedding "programming" in the text but who was sufficiently frightened by programming in general to refuse to even consider it as a possible solution. (I tried to present LaTeX as something that did not require programming, but to no avail.) One of the criticisms that was proposed against a programming requirement was that left (or was it right?) brain types - the artistic ones - would somehow be sullied by having to learn programming. I dont know if i give much credence to this distinction, but i cant see how exposure to other types of discipline would harm anyone. This distinction is even rather dangerous (smacks of something like racism to me). The following statements would seem to follow (and i find them equally egregious). "Artists should never take programming courses as it might somehow make them less of an artist. "Engineers should never take writing courses as it might somehow ruin their engineering talents." Another criticism was that some poor freshman shouldnt have Pascal shoved down his throat as he might not like it and might go away hating it and avoiding it. This is a good point, but i think it reflects more on Pascal and the teaching methods used than on the idea of teaching programming. As i said before, i think graphics would be a good place to start as it does make things fun - of course it is expensive as you need a good graphics system - but it is also quite interesting and you can go a long way with it. Well, i was a math major as an undergrad and had calculus (several courses worth) and physics shoved down my throat and hated every second of both subjects. I still became a math major and did quite well once i got out of the nasty stuff (loved analysis!). Come to think of it, i also had programming (in fortran, batch, cards, IBM...) and hated it as well. I would love to manage the world in such a way that people only learned things when they wanted to, but im not sure that that is really feasible. Come to think of it, im not sure i liked much of anything my freshman year, but i think i did need to be exposed to it. I havent managed (reading this over) to explain myself at all well, but i think that to really do the problem justice would take much more time and energy and bits than im willing to put into it just now. jeff putnam jefu@pawl.rpi.edu -or- jeff_putnam%rpitsmts@itsgw.rpi.edu "People would rather believe a simple lie than the complex truth."