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Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

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Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#121

Post by absconditus »

616c wrote: post #105
stiff wrote: post #33

To me there seems to be something wrong with using as the first language something that depends on a very, very complicated runtime and execution model to run on the hardware we currently are using. This way people end up viewing programming languages as some God-given black box and not just something another computer program written by another person provides for you. I think CS students should instead start by lear…

Your idea about going from architecture to programming in the other way of traditional curricula, in my opinion, has a lot of merit. Other seem to agree. An Israeli professor, Noam Nisan, created a course specifically for this purpose, now branded even more popularly as Nand2Tetris course and book.[0] Why did he teach something obvious like this? From the site: "Why Bother? Because many CS students don't understand h…

Ironically, all of the software for From NAND to Tetris is written in Java.

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#122

Post by timje1 »

mseebach wrote: post #81
timje1 wrote: post #16

Dijkstra assumes that students will already have been exposed to imperative languages before joining university, and will appreciate the change. I think that this assumption might leave behind students that have not yet been exposed to any programming (that stuck). Over in the UK I certainly hadn't encountered anything more complicated than html before I hit university, and was very happy with sticking with Java for…

> might leave behind students that have not yet been exposed to any programming And good riddance. If you make it to university without exposing yourself to your subject as a matter of passion (and few subjects are more easily approached by hobbyists than programming) you're going to waste your time there. University is a not a "school" you attend for learning a subject. You can't show up for English Literature if yo…

I couldn't disagree more. I started with 'Hrm, this particular attitude could be considered exclusionary for underprivileged kids' and you responded with what appears to amount to 'haha, fuck those guys!'.

I hope that you never make it to any position of authority or influence within education.

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#123

Post by jeffdavis »

cies wrote: post #117
stiff wrote: post #33

To me there seems to be something wrong with using as the first language something that depends on a very, very complicated runtime and execution model to run on the hardware we currently are using. This way people end up viewing programming languages as some God-given black box and not just something another computer program written by another person provides for you. I think CS students should instead start by lear…

> I think CS students should instead start by learning [...] programming on a level close to the computer architecture I heard this idea before, sound interesting. Are you aware of any CS course starting with assembly as intro language?

Depending on the track you take, I think that most programs do offer assembly quite early on. I took an x86 assembly class at a local community college, and then a MIPS-based class while doing my B.S. in EE.

I did things a little out of order though, so maybe it's easy to accidentally (or intentionally) miss assembly for a while.

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#124

Post by the_af »

Pxtl wrote: post #103

I tend to think Java is a good first programming language, much like Basic and Pascal were the "first programming language" for so many of us back in our youths. Not every high-school offers programming, and of the ones that do there's no guarantee students have actually been properly introduced to programming. And like all "first programming language"s, it should be discarded as you learn proper languages. 2001ish-e…

What are Java's merits as a first programming language? Keep in mind all of its warts would have to be unlearned later by the prospective student. It can, like Dijkstra argued, introduce unhealthy thinking habits.

Why not a simpler higher-level language as a first language? (pick one, there are lots of simpler languages than Java).

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#125

Post by undoware »

I agree with Dijkstra that Haskell should be taught in undergraduate courses. That's where we boil away most of the really bad, theory-ahead-of-practice CS ideas that academe cultivates. And I say this as a lover of both Haskell and universities.

It's not until you've spent several 4am nights getting darcs and hackage to work that you realize no team can succeed without the sort of people who like reality and boring details as much as beautiful ideas. Haskell's culture is anathema to them. (And no, I'm not one of them. I just want my app to compile and my deps to be found.)

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#126

Post by scott_s »

stiff wrote: post #119
scott_s wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are placing too much emphasis on the start of one's education. Pick a place in the stack. Start learning. Over time you should go up and down the stack, building understanding as you go. This can be done from many places in the stack.

The point is that the later courses in CS curriculum depend much more on a good understanding of the imperative model and the issues that first arose in programming early Von Neumann computers, than they depend on understanding functional programming. Undergraduate algorithm classes are exclusively concerned with developing imperative algorithms. Large part of understanding operating systems is understanding how they…

Starting at one place in the stack does not prevent you from moving to other places for subsequent courses.

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#127

Post by sbov »

mseebach wrote: post #81
timje1 wrote: post #16

Dijkstra assumes that students will already have been exposed to imperative languages before joining university, and will appreciate the change. I think that this assumption might leave behind students that have not yet been exposed to any programming (that stuck). Over in the UK I certainly hadn't encountered anything more complicated than html before I hit university, and was very happy with sticking with Java for…

> might leave behind students that have not yet been exposed to any programming And good riddance. If you make it to university without exposing yourself to your subject as a matter of passion (and few subjects are more easily approached by hobbyists than programming) you're going to waste your time there. University is a not a "school" you attend for learning a subject. You can't show up for English Literature if yo…

Many of us went into college without the privilege of having a good idea of what we wanted to do with ourselves.

In addition to that, among my circle of friends, it's common to know people who switched majors mid-school because they stumbled upon something they found more interesting - isn't that great? They thought they loved something, but found something they loved even more. Or, I guess they should have just been given the boot instead.

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#128

Post by danielweber »

RyanZAG wrote: post #113
danielweber wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up until about a decade ago, most CS graduates from MIT were never taught C or Java in any class. They still seemed to do pretty well in the job market. (Mostly it was assumed that if you really liked software development, you would go out and learn one of those languages outside of class, such as from a student-led seminar.)

It's just a business thing. Some large local companies come and talk to the university and say that they need a bunch of CS grads to fit into their business. The HR drone says they need to know Java to be able to integrate into the company quickly. The lecturers get upset. The finance department gets promised a donation, the marketing department gets promised easy job searching for CS students. The ivory tower crumbl…

That might (might) explain a tiny college, but it's not a reasonable explanation for universities with huge endowments to switch from Haskell to Java.

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#129

Post by stiff »

scott_s wrote: post #126
stiff wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the later courses in CS curriculum depend much more on a good understanding of the imperative model and the issues that first arose in programming early Von Neumann computers, than they depend on understanding functional programming. Undergraduate algorithm classes are exclusively concerned with developing imperative algorithms. Large part of understanding operating systems is understanding how they…

Starting at one place in the stack does not prevent you from moving to other places for subsequent courses.

And you don't see value in the core sequence being more deeply interconnected?

Re: Dijkstra on Haskell and Java (2001)

#130

Post by pdpi »

yodsanklai wrote: post #66
bunderbunder wrote: post #28

Around the same time, my alma mater was switching from Scheme to Java for their introductory courses. Last time I went back to homecoming, it seemed that most the professors were feeling pretty dissatisfied about the decision. One of the big reasons mentioned was that Java's just too big and hairy of a language. They end up spending all their time teaching API quirks and software engineering principles (such as prett…

Same here. There are two camps in my "alma mater". Those that think that students should learn programming with a simple and "clean" language, and those that think students should focus on widely used languages. They too abandoned Scheme which means that student don't learn any functional language. I think it's a shame considering that functional paradigms are getting more and more commonplace. (However, I much prefe…

I can kind of see the point of going for "widely used languages", but if you don't want to use scheme or haskell, then at least go for c, c++, python, or javascript. A Java Hello World requires a ton of OOP boilerplate, and you're stuck either explaining OOP as the very first you do (which is stupid), or asking your students to either ignore the boilerplate or recite it as a magical mantra.
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