Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cos!hadron!decuac!felix!sybert
From: sybert@felix.UUCP (Mark Sybert)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Semester Projects needed for Pascal course
Keywords: Pascal, projects
Message-ID: <74739@felix.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 88 17:37:39 GMT
References: <3489@emory.uucp>
Sender: daemon@felix.UUCP
Reply-To: sybert@felix.UUCP (Mark Sybert)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA
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In article <3489@emory.uucp> riddle@emory.uucp (Larry Riddle) writes:
>Next semester I will be teaching a course on "Introduction to Computer
>Science" using Pascal. I was thinking that it would be nice to have
>some major programming project that the students would work on
>throughout the semester, writing additional parts as we learn the
>appropriate pascal language and computer science theory. Has anyone
>tried this in a first programming course? I would welcome any
>suggestions on possible projects. For example, two possible projects
>might be writing a simple text editor or writing a simple symbolic
>differentiation program. I would like that the project require as much
>of the standard theory as possible, e.g. recursion, pointers, linked 
>lists, other data structures, etc.
>

As someone who has taught a few years of "Intro to CS" courses, I must
say that having a major, semester long project is a bad idea.  Ideally
its good but in practice you'll find that some (or many) students will
fall behind early, failing to get the first sections of the program
done correctly/cleanly.  Then, theres no way for them to do the later
sections.  True, some students will make it through and they are to
be congratulated, but for most a major project would be too frustrating.

For a first course, use a series of smaller (e.g. 2-3 week) programming
assignments, tailoring each one to a different kind of data structure
and/or control mechanism.  Save the major projects for the 2nd or 3rd
semester course.

One last remark.  When choosing a major project topic, tailor it to the
students background/interests.  In particular, if the students are not
math/cs majors, dont choose a math oriented project (such as the 
differentiation example you mentioned).  Its also possible that there
will be some freshmen in you Intro class who have not had enough math
yet to handle the project.