Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sdrc!diluthr
From: diluthr@sdrc.UUCP (Dan Luther)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: CS-1
Summary: my mistake..
Message-ID: <716@sdrc.UUCP>
Date: 10 May 89 11:49:19 GMT
References: <2130@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <2394@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> <206@psgdc> <6086@pdn.paradyne.com>
Organization: Structural Dynamics Research Corp., Cincinnati
Lines: 42

In article <6086@pdn.paradyne.com>, reggie@dinsdale.nm.paradyne.com (George W. Leach) writes:
> In article <715@sdrc.UUCP> diluthr@sdrc.UUCP (Dan Luther) writes:
> 
> >This is so true.  At Cal. State Chico where I got my degree, the initial CS 
> >class (read 'thinner class') was assembly language programming (two thirds of 
>               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >the initial enrollment had dropped by the final).  One of the reasons this
> >class was so tough was beacause, in the words of my TA 'it's really two
> >classes in one, problem solving AND assembly language programming'.  He was
> >right on the target!
> 
> 
>       It is not clear to me exactly what type of course this is.  If this
> was the initial PROGRAMMING class, then I can see why so many people dropped
> out of the program :-)  It might give one the impression that assembly is
> what CS is all about!
> 
> 
>       I am hoping that the initial CS class was not the first time the
> students in the program had been exposed to programming and problem
> solving.
> 
Sorry, I'm pretty sure you had to have taken a 'high' level programming 
language (COBOL, FORTRAN, PASCAL) already.  So it wasn't the first CS class you 
had to take.  I was likening it to CHEM 1A for science majors, it's a 
degree requirement that *everyone* in the program will eventually have to 
take.  It's a pre-requisiste for *most* of the the other classes in the program. 
There were some programming classes that you could take at just about any time,
but if you were serious about the major, you had to pass this class.  I think 
a lot of the students were *considering* a CS major.  If they were ideed 
serious, they usually took it again later (I knew one woman to who took it 
three times before she passed, she ended up doing well in the program, she 
just had s slow start).

So I shouldn't have indicated that is was the 'initial' CS class.  It was more 
like one of the initial classes for the degree requirement chain.  Sorry.

But I hope that doesn't invalidate the point I was trying to make, and that is
(good) problem solving skills are to important to be *bundled* with a 
programming language.  Teach them in a language independant class.

Dan