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List:       kde-edu
Subject:    Re: [kde-edu]: proposal
From:       Matthew Tedder <matthew () tedder ! com>
Date:       2002-06-17 17:41:39
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On Monday 10 June 2002 02:43 pm, Anthony Moulen wrote:
> Why teach an outdated model only to turn around and teach the right way to
> build applications later? It is true that some people will be building low
> level tools and services, which are often better served by being in C or
> some other low level language without objects.  But when you start
> programming you want to see neat results and such.  Teaching a structured
> low level language versus a object oriented language is the wrong
> direction.  It is also often believed that teaching non-object oriented
> languages first makes it more difficult to properly learn and use object
> oriented programming techniques, as you try first to apply a functional or
> procedural method to solve your problem before moving to an object oriented
> model.

Structured programming languages are not outdated.  Object-orientation is not 
the "best" approach for every problem.  If it were, we'd all be using Java 
for everything. 

Objects carry overhead that is unnecessary in many cases.  C++ gives one the 
option of when and where to break up objects thus allowing the programmer to 
use objects where the benefits outweight the costs (and Java does not, which 
is not Java cannot be as fast as C++, unless the C++ code is structured 
similarly and the Java is fully compiled to machine code).  

But OO makes great sense for software engineering of complex systems.  It 
does not make sense for many other tasks, such as most data processing tasks, 
for example.  Then the complexity of OO gets in the way of efficiency.

We have many languages for many reasons.  All can be justified as being 
"best" for some particular task.  

And even C++ is a structured language at its core.  So I think a structured, 
RAD-type language does make sense as a starting point toward eventually 
learning C++. 

>
> In what little programming I have taught (high school and junior high
>  levels), I would now have wished I had started with something like Java
> then moved on to C++ and then maybe straight C.  As for Pascal, is there
> really much going on around Pascal these days?
>
> I will tell you this now, students learn better when they can apply what
> they learn to real situations.  You teach them a language that isn't used,
> and they aren't going to learn as well.  What neat things can you do with C
> inside of KDE?
>
> Also, how many times has someone here tried to make a struct work like a
> poor man's class? There is a reason there are objects now.
>
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> http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-edu

-- 
Anything that can be logically explained, can be programmed.
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