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Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

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211–220 of 286 posts

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#211
This seems to be a natural evolution of a new field.

At the start, the goal of teaching is to produce highly-skilled graduates who can contribute greatly to the task at hand. During that phase, there's no problem with a high drop-out rate, and no need to "sell" the discipline by extending its reach. This is basically an exponential phase.

Later on, as faculty slots fill up, a steady state can be reached, in which the supply of graduates meets the demands of the community. That's when things get extended, and the goal can start to shift from turning out highly-skilled graduates with narrow focus to simply educating. Every university has a psychology department that has huge classes. Students in those thousand-seat classes are not going on to become psychologists; they are enriching their experience of life. And the dividing line between what they are learning and what they could learn in grade 10 is very thin, so this kind of material can also be taught in high school. Again, those 15-year olds are not destined to work in psychology, any more than they are destined to work in history, literature, or all the other fascinating courses that are being offered to them.

It looks as though the author is suggesting that education in computing is entering this state, in which there is very little probability of the student becoming a professional. And, in that scenario, I agree fully with the theses of the article.

But I still think there is a place for the old system of teaching a language and expecting that some of the students will go on to contribute at the cutting edge. It's great to have classes on photoshop and the like, but there is a question about what they ought to be called. Perhaps CA (computer applications) is a better acronym than CS for that student in sixth grade.

Using the same title for everything that happens to involve using computers is a mistake, not least because it gives students an incorrect impression of the pathways they might want to follow.

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#212

Given the ever-increasing amount of automation in the economy, I believe that programming (of one form or another) is going to become a skill as important as writing. Everyone learns how to write in school, even though only a few become novelists or journalists. Similarly, everyone will learn to code even though only a few will become data scientists or software engineers. Programming for non-professionals looks a lo…

I'm not sure what you expect them to be able to do beside using Excel.

Usually the pipe-dream is that some sort of graphical "no-code" or "low-code" system with a crippled DSL will be more benefit than hassle, and enable them to do things without needing to actually know how programming and the whole stack of abstractions they are sitting on work.

It's one of those things that is always 20 years away, like nuclear fusion.

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#213
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a student has trouble transferring their knowledge of programming fundamentals “Programming fundamentals” isn’t the same from language to language. It’s inconceivable that a student who learned to program with python would develop the same type of fundamental understanding as a student who used C (to develop an understanding of memory-level APIs) or Haskell (to develop an understanding of type and semantic theor…

> I don’t think everyone can understand computer science. This is a bold claim. None of us are special for working in tech. Our life has presented us the opportunity and passion to invest ourselves deeply in the field, often at great opportunity cost. Saying that a bad teacher makes no difference in student outcomes is equally ridiculous as saying an excellent teacher makes no difference in student outcomes. If that'…

I dislike the way that so many people have a burning desire to belittle the difficulty of what we do. The fact of the matter is that most people cannot do it, and pretending otherwise is not helpful.

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#214
post #209

Dijkstra in https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.htm... has various quotes that apply here. The most applicable is, "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." But do not forget, "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be r…

On the other hand my team recent was taking about what languages we started with, and about 1/4 of us started with Basic. Seemed to recover ok!

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#215
post #18

If a student has trouble transferring their knowledge of programming fundamentals from one language to another, it seems far more likely they didn't really understand them to begin with, which is a failure of teaching and testing, not some sort of 'limitation' in the student.

> If a student has trouble transferring their knowledge of programming fundamentals “Programming fundamentals” isn’t the same from language to language. It’s inconceivable that a student who learned to program with python would develop the same type of fundamental understanding as a student who used C (to develop an understanding of memory-level APIs) or Haskell (to develop an understanding of type and semantic theor…

Maybe not everyone, but definitly a majority. I'm not talking about learning assembly language, but learning some HTML/CSS/Javascript (if properly taught) seems pretty simple to me. With enough effort and youth (ie malleable brain).

It's crazy that programmers think this to me and just a form of ingrained tribalism that tells them that what they do is somehow special. Probably because they get such crazy time-valuations in terms of salary. But that's just a supply and demand curve.

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bold claim, but it's been largely proven by the famous "The Camel Has Two Humps" article that one basic prereq for learning CS/programming effectively is understanding that one is dealing with a formal system that's following consistent rules, even if it's not always clear what these rules might be. It seems to be quite hard to teach this understanding precisely to those who haven't internalized it, but it's a…

The author of "The Camel Has Two Humps" has retracted it. https://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have... "That document was very misleading and, in the way of web documents, it continues to mislead to this day. I need to make an explicit retraction of what it claimed. Dehnadi didn’t discover a programming aptitude test. He didn’t find a way of dividing programming sheep from non-programming goats. We…

That's too bad, then. A good paper should not be retracted simply because of so many misinterpreting what it's talking about and creating some pointless controversy about it. The underlying "phenomenon and prediction" (namely, the bimodal distribution of proficiency in basic CS) stands up to scrutiny.

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#217
When I arrived at university we had to do a Haskell course first. I didn’t realize it at the time because it just felt backwards, but it was a great “reset” of the minds of everyone like me who had done C64 Basic and Pascal. It also served as a great equalizer in the class when some people had never programmed while some of us had done it for 15 years. The Haskell course put everyone on an equal footing.

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been a pipe dream of some since the 1960s that "everybody" would program computers in the future. It hasn't happened and won't happen. Most people simply don't have the patience for it.

Not the patience but the aptitude for it. Writing code simply doesn't require the same amount of intelligence as writing a sentence.

Sit down at a piano for the first time

Try to play a Chopin Etude

Quit piano because it seems impossible and you don't have the "aptitude".

This is how people view most skills. Obviously if you practiced hard enough and long enough you could eventually play a Chopin etude. I can't think of any skill that is all that different than that.

I think part of it is our language isn't the best here. "Patience" is the right word but patience with putting in work as opposed to just waiting.

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#219
post #214
post #209

Dijkstra in https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.htm... has various quotes that apply here. The most applicable is, "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." But do not forget, "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be r…

On the other hand my team recent was taking about what languages we started with, and about 1/4 of us started with Basic. Seemed to recover ok!

That’s your own opinion.

Re: Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really no reason to go to university if all you want is to write some Python scripts. University is not vocational training.

> University is not vocational training. University started out as a trade school for the clergy, then added law and medicine, and then became a finishing school. At all points the median student was more interested in drinking than studying. Scholarship has always been a minority pursuit at universities and research universities haven’t even existed for 300 years. Universities are now and always have been vocational…

The clergy weren't a vocational body, they were a club. And wars were fought over whether the people in that club had to go to university to be able to join.

Ditto the lawyers, who certainly don't need to go to university to read law or argue. Being a lawyer is also basically being in a special club.

Medicine, I can only see a vocational aspect. But that is only 1 in 3.

> At all points the median student was more interested in drinking than studying.

A good use to time in the club. But only relatively rich students can afford to do this. Anyone who drinks their way through a university experience is either rich or busy trying to join a club.

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