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

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

#221

Post by urthor »

chrisaycock wrote: post #5

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…

Absolutely not.

Programming is like, using mathematical structure to instruct a computer.

But many domains don't need you to use mathematics to instruct the computer. Natural language processing, like a search bar, GUI, .

Medicine, legal, so many other trades don't need mathematical instruction of a computer.

They just need not-totally-useless operation of it, through

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

#222

Post by aardvark179 »

alkonaut wrote: post #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.

Likewise, but ML rather than Haskell.

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

#223

Post by manjalyc »

oblio wrote: post #147
pelario wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure a century or two the same was said for reading and writing.

Yeah, but: > In the US, 14% of the adult population is at the "below basic" level for prose literacy; 12% are at the "below basic" level for document literacy, and 22% are at that level for quantitative literacy. Only 13% of the population is proficient in each of these three areas—able to compare viewpoints in two editorials; interpret a table about blood pressure, age, and physical activity; or compute and compare…

100% population literacy is neither reasonable nor attainable. Yet, functional literacy has drastically improved throughout the past century.

To say programming is never to attain such a characteristic is making a statement against the trends of history in all other academic disciplines. Focusing on the present state is an ignorance of underlying trend.

A couple thousand years ago, groundbreaking advances in trigonometry were made by some of the worlds smartest people. Today the average high schooler knows soh cah toa.

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

#224

Post by jefftk »

nesarkvechnep wrote: post #219
jefftk wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not claiming Basic is the best language, or that it doesn't matter what language you start with, but "practically impossible" is clearly way off.

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

#225

Post by esrauch »

lupire wrote: post #38
esrauch wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the topic is how their view is shaped by the first language they learn. If they learn C first, will their ability to knowledge transfer into other languages happen differently then if they learned Python first? Concretely, I can't fathom how people learn Rust without learning one of C or C++ first, and I'd think the underpinnings of how you understand code and systems is probably different if you are subconscious…

C is very different from C++. Rust isn't more complicated than C++.

I agree they are different, I really did mean "I don't understand how people learn Rust without first learning one of several languages that are more straightforward/explicit what is on the stack and what is on the heap".

C++ overall obviously isn't simpler then Rust; C++ in its entirety so complicated it's like three languages stapled together. But with C++ as first language, you can study programming for 6 months before ever even hearing about std::move, and with Rust you'd need to already learn about move semantics on like week 3, when people are still having trouble with loops

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

#226

Post by peoplefromibiza »

jefftk wrote: post #214
btilly wrote: 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!

I've started with BASIC as well, in the 80s, on a C64

Dijkstra was right: I've wasted a lot of time unlearning BASIC to re-learn, if I wasn't exposed to BASIC at all I could have learnt from scratch a proper modern programming language/paradigm

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

#227

Post by alanbernstein »

jefftk wrote: post #224
nesarkvechnep wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s your own opinion.

I'm not claiming Basic is the best language, or that it doesn't matter what language you start with, but "practically impossible" is clearly way off.

I think you need to know how many students were introduced to programming with a course in Basic, and gave up programming, to make that claim. Not that I necessarily agree with the quote.

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

#228

Post by umvi »

nindalf wrote: post #112

There’s a lot of folks in this thread who’ve shared their personal experience with learning and teaching programming languages. Some attempt to generalise this experience into principles of how much the first language matters and how to choose it. It would move the conversation forward if people were up front about which metric they’re trying to move. For example, here are two equally valid pedagogical goals that are…

This is a good response. There are some people that are determined to become programmers at all costs. For them I don't think starting language matters as much. For others it might matter more.

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

#229

Post by patentatt »

chrisaycock wrote: post #5

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 bearish on the long-fabled ‘citizen programmer.’ This is a concept that’s been long discussed in the legal tech world, and it just won’t happen, not here, and not yet. Non-technical people, largely, don’t want to make things work, they want to tell other people to make things work. They have the raw intelligence to do it, but don’t want to do it, and don’t want to be convinced to apply themselves to learn how to do it. It’s just a cultural gulf that I think tech-minded folks can’t wrap their heads around.

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

#230

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

I mostly had Java as well as these:

Basic web stuff MSSQL C and C++ Bash Intel Assembly

Overall I'd say a little bit of everything is good for a CS student. Don't keep them hooked on one thing for too long. Not that students will be using C/C++ or assembly upon graduation most likely, but then are just another tool. I just wish we learned more about REST and doing CRUD operations. That took me a long time with my internship for it to "click" on what was happening.

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