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List:       suse-linux-uk-schools
Subject:    Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Plans for a Linux distro
From:       "'Frank Shute'" <frank () esperance-linux ! co ! uk>
Date:       2002-02-04 15:35:40
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On Mon, Feb 04, 2002 at 11:28:17AM -0000, Grainge,  Derek wrote:
>
> Frank, the point I was making in a very deliberately unsubtle way was the
> one you rose to: your original and extensive reply dissed the opposition so
> hard in in such personal terms that it lost its effectiveness.

OK, it's just the way I always put my argument I guess.

> 
> Now, my reply was to one specific point regarding interface design, which
> was why I quoted you. The interface is extremely relevant.   Look at
> http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm

Yes, I've seen that site before & it's well worth a look.

> Regarding what should be taught in schools, I would certainly not teach C or
> C++ as a first language, points I made in another posting. Young kids want
> fast results otherwise they lose interest, 

Do the kids lose interest or the teachers? They should learn that in
programming in general there are no such things as fast results, it's
painstaking, methodical and requires a lot of concentration if you're
going to produce something worthwhile - pretending otherwise is just
leading them up the garden path.

> so I think that at the age of 13
> or so, starlogo http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/Projects/starlogo/ is
> much more accessible that any professional language.  [It's a Java applet!]

I'll check it out. FWIW, Smalltalk was originally designed for young
people to program in and is a very pure OO language.
 
> This begs the question of what you teach older pupils.   C and C++ allow you
> to make lots of mistakes.   C++ has never really lived up to the object
> promise IMO.    

Most OO languages have failed to live up to the OO promise of fast
development & code re-use but C++ is one of the worst in that it's
little more than C with classes and suffers from a lot of what makes C
a difficult language to program in.

> Up until recently I taught Pascal, as a procedural language
> with good error checking.   Now I'm not so sure.  I really don't want to
> head down the C route, but I do want something with more 'teeth' than Logo.

Like Gary, I'd probably go with perl. It's possible to write really
obscure perl code but you can write fairly formal procedural code.
It's extensible and the kids can get to grips with things like regular
expressions which are important whatever language you use. Perl's also
available for Windows aswell as unix so you can develop/run it on
either.  

> The point being that this is education not training.   I don't
> expect my students to step straight into jobs with software
> companies.   I do want them to have a basic understanding of program
> structures, interfaces and algorithms which they can build on
> wherever they go next.   Any employer who offers a job solely on
> programming expertise picked up at school is asking for trouble!
> [although I can think of a couple of particular cases straight off
> which counter that argument]  

I totally agree.
 
> From that perspective VB is no better or worse than many other languages.
> Not that I actually use it myself. But I have pupils who do....

It's worse than most others. It leads to lack of understanding of the
fundamentals, time wasted on making things look nice and poor
programming style. It's platform dependent and costs money and gives
the kids illusions of programming grandeur.

-- 

 Frank 

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If people see that you mean them no harm, they'll never hurt you, nine
times out of ten!

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