101–110 of 132 posts
Making Java an introductory programming language was a misbegotten idea IMO. I can sort of see the justifications: "it'll make students workforce ready", "it's a modern programming language and teaches OOP" etc. And relevance to industry is also probably why Stanford might be switching to JS. For me an intro programming language should have one of two qualities. It should either: a) have simple, easy-to-understand sy…
I think something like Racket or other Lisps are much easier to wrap your head around as a first principles language. Python has its own set of problems, and JavaScript is complicated even for experienced programmers. If something more "modern" was needed, Ruby would also be a fantastic choice. It's easy to pick up, reinforces object-oriented design, and it has Rails. I get why people think learning C first makes mor…
>I think you can really see that when you look at courses that teach both C and C++, where too much time is spent on doing things in C and not really learning how to work idiomatically with C++.
I think teaching a language should not be the primary goal of most software engineering courses. Instead, a language should be chosen that complements the syllabus. This usually suggests that it plays well with a particular paradigm and doesn't have too many quirks that delay a student's progress with the material. C++, in my experience, is used to introduce students to OOP, and I think it makes a fine choice for this.
>If you compare C to a Lisp, I feel like the latter is far more applicable to modern everyday programming than the former, especially with the resurgence of functional programming.
I think it's a bit early on to say that functional is more applicable to modern programming as compared to OOP. Iterative is obviously a no-go, but most developers today are immersed in OO and BAs/product managers speak it a bit more fluently than they do FP. That said, if you're just starting out, you can probably jump in to FP more easily than you could if you were to learn OO first.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure how that follows. You can try to teach good habits, but you're still throwing intro students into a language that doesn't care if you follow them or not.
But surely a university environment is the best place to experiment and learn what works and what doesn't. I mean, the majority of these students will have to write JavaScript sooner or later. Better they learn it in a controlled environment.
Remember, we're talking about intro languages here. It's a much better idea to teach languages that encourage good habits because then going to "wild west" languages like javascript is much easier.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure how that follows. You can try to teach good habits, but you're still throwing intro students into a language that doesn't care if you follow them or not.
But surely a university environment is the best place to experiment and learn what works and what doesn't. I mean, the majority of these students will have to write JavaScript sooner or later. Better they learn it in a controlled environment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure how that follows. You can try to teach good habits, but you're still throwing intro students into a language that doesn't care if you follow them or not.
But surely a university environment is the best place to experiment and learn what works and what doesn't. I mean, the majority of these students will have to write JavaScript sooner or later. Better they learn it in a controlled environment.
You also can't really teach only an opinionated subset of the language, since students use all kinds of material to learn. Material about JS is often steeped in environment details (browser, nodeJS, JQuery, ...), and thanks to transpilation right now multiple versions are popular, which makes it even more confusing.
It wouldn't be impossible to teach a good intro course with JS, but I don't see any benefit in doing so, and it wouldn't make the students very effective JS programmers.
Making Java an introductory programming language was a misbegotten idea IMO. I can sort of see the justifications: "it'll make students workforce ready", "it's a modern programming language and teaches OOP" etc. And relevance to industry is also probably why Stanford might be switching to JS. For me an intro programming language should have one of two qualities. It should either: a) have simple, easy-to-understand sy…
This is a direct result of the design decision to enforce an OO class structure on all Java programs. You literally can't write any code that isn't somehow part of a "class" (an OO concept that, as an intro CS student, you haven't even learned yet).
Javascript is a good practical language, but it was never designed as a beginner's one and has tons of quirks, from minor, to major things like being kinda-OO-but-not-OO and kinda-functional-but-not-functional. And subjecting a beginner to some of the industrial JS framework code would be downright cruel.
Making Java an introductory programming language was a misbegotten idea IMO. I can sort of see the justifications: "it'll make students workforce ready", "it's a modern programming language and teaches OOP" etc. And relevance to industry is also probably why Stanford might be switching to JS. For me an intro programming language should have one of two qualities. It should either: a) have simple, easy-to-understand sy…
Rust and Go should probably also be considered for b), don't you think?
Making Java an introductory programming language was a misbegotten idea IMO. I can sort of see the justifications: "it'll make students workforce ready", "it's a modern programming language and teaches OOP" etc. And relevance to industry is also probably why Stanford might be switching to JS. For me an intro programming language should have one of two qualities. It should either: a) have simple, easy-to-understand sy…
> introductory programming language > make students workforce ready That's the problem right here - the idea that a single introductory programming course can make anyone "workforce ready".
A lot of people here forget this.