From: bohy6489@iscsvax.uni.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: programming languages, education, unanswered questions, loose threads
Date: 26 Aug 92 17:01:00 -0500
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

I had a programming languages course with Bruce MacLennan while at the
University of Tennessee.  He made three statements which (I think) contribute
very nicely to this thread during the course of that semester:

        1) "Every language since FORTRAN, with the possible exception of
            functional programming languages, is just warmed-over FORTRAN."

        2) "A programming language is defined as a language in which you can
            write *any* program."

Some may argue this point with statements like "FORTRAN doesn't support
recursion.  Therefore I cannot write recursive programs in FORTRAN and FORTRAN
is not a programming language."  However, any solution you can represent
recursively can be represented iteratively, so this argument does not hold
water.

        3) "People talk like Object-oriented programming is such a *new*
            concept.  The fact is, it is very ancient in computer terms, as
            SmallTalk was developed in the mid 1960's."

I *still* maintain (as someone else has pointed out) that it is *not* the
language which encourages bad programming style.  With the possible exception
of LISP (which IMHO is unreadable), anyone can write a readable program in any
language.  The *programmer*, however, *does* effect the way his/her program is
written, in a very big way.

So the argument of what language should we use to teach CS is, in some sense,
rather pointless.  We all have our preferences.  I too think that C lets you do
some *very* ugly things.  I like Pascal and FORTRAN.  Not because they are what
I learned (I learned BASIC first), nor even because they are what I used most
(though they are).  It is almost an asthetic thing for me.

Some have suggested that we as educators need to encourage more creativity in
our students.  Taking this argument to one possible conclusion, we would allow
them to write assignments in the language of *their* choice, rather than the
language of our (the department's) choice.  But don't ask *me* to grade them,
as I am sure some student would come up with a wonderful occam version of the
assignment that I would just have to look at and say, "that's very nice."

Somehow, a happy medium needs to be reached, don't you think?  We want to
encourage creativity, yet we have this evaluation process that almost demands
some sort of objectivity.  Personally, I have gotten some of my poorest grades
in courses I learned the *most* in.  What does that say?  That I don't take
that professor's tests very well, or do well on the assignments.  Yet I have
come away from these types of classes and am able to accurately *apply* the
knowledge gained.

But we cannot get away from it.  Even if we did away with ABCDF, we are still
stuck with determining who passes and who fails, and a guideline of what is
considered the "minimum" knowledge must be created.  Thus, we all spend our
time worrying about what our GPA is.  Those of us who want to be college-level
educators have more worries about it than some others, as GPA as well as some
highly questionable standardized tests will determine our ability to get into
most any graduate school...

What sickens me most is that individuals with the knowledge and capability to
teach are being pushed out of schools in favor of those with a knack for
publishing (but could not teach their way out of a paper bag).  *THIS* is the
educational crisis in America, at least in post-secondary schools...

but I digress...

===============================================================================
Jim Bohy                                        | "If you have to ask, you'll
Graduate Student - Computer Science Education   |  never know..."
University of Northern Iowa                     | 
Cedar Falls, IA  50614                          | - Louis Armstrong, when asked
bohy@att1.uni.edu                               |   what jazz is.
===============================================================================

ps - some other statements from Programming languages with MacLennan:

        "PL/I is the swiss-army-knife approach to programming language design."

        "After publishing the second edition of my book, I quit doing research
         in programming language design.  There's nothing new."

        (you could tell by the way he taught the course that he had lost much
         interest in the subject, I'll tell you that)

Newsgroups: comp.edu