Teaching programing

robin_listas · January 26, 2012, 11:13am

On 2012-01-26 00:36, Martin Helm wrote:
> Am 26.01.2012 00:23, schrieb Carlos E. R.:
>> Pascal was designed for teaching.
>>
> More than 40 years ago and time did not stand still in programming.

Procedures are still procedures

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

martin_helm · January 26, 2012, 3:08pm

Am 26.01.2012 11:13, schrieb Carlos E. R.:
> On 2012-01-26 00:36, Martin Helm wrote:
>> Am 26.01.2012 00:23, schrieb Carlos E. R.:
>>> Pascal was designed for teaching.
>>>
>> More than 40 years ago and time did not stand still in programming.
>
> Procedures are still procedures
>
You know yourself that this is a simplistic answer. The way programming
changed in that time goes much deeper and teaching that from the very
beginning is fair.
Object orientation was an afterthought many many years after Pascal was
invented and from my point of view it was introduced in a way that made
the original language cluttered and unnatural.
Try to teach someone classes in Python and compare it what you all have
to do to teach it in Pascal.

My mileage also varies here since from my personal experience it had not
even made much sense in the past to teach academic languages which where
not created for real world problems to people which are not computer
scientists (I am myself none but a mathematician).

The sole reasons one uses and teaches a programming language is to solve
problems from the real world - of course this is not true for computer
scientist they also study programming languages for academic reasons,
but we speak not about computer scientists here.

For a beginner I also think that an interpreted language has huge
benefits over a compiled one because it is interactive and allows easy
experimenting with the language.

I do not want to go for a religious programming language war here (the
internet is full of it - useless to read) just sum my thoughts about
teaching beginners.

I think I understand your different point of view and at the end I think
the OP has to decide by looking at what was said what and by
investigating the different options what the best is for the course
which will be taught.

djh-novell · January 26, 2012, 3:32pm

Martin Helm wrote:
> You know yourself that this is a simplistic answer. The way programming
> changed in that time goes much deeper and teaching that from the very
> beginning is fair.
> Object orientation was an afterthought many many years after Pascal was
> invented and from my point of view it was introduced in a way that made
> the original language cluttered and unnatural.

I’m confused here. Object-oriented programming languages preceded the
design of Pascal. Simula-67 is said to have been a direct influence on
Wirth, for example. I can only suppose that you are talking about Object
Pascal as being later than Pascal, but they are two different languages
and Object Pascal is not really relevant to the discussion.

> My mileage also varies here since from my personal experience it had not
> even made much sense in the past to teach academic languages which where
> not created for real world problems to people which are not computer
> scientists (I am myself none but a mathematician).

I’m confused again. I think what you’re implying is that Pascal is an
academic language unsuited to real world problems. As somebody who has
written oil rig control programs in Pascal, I can assure you that that
is not the case.

So in my opinion Pascal is a fine language, and was designed to be easy
to teach, but I nevertheless agree with you that it’s not the best
choice for the OP’s requirements. It is now only of marginal interest.
Python is more mainstream and offers more modern features when required.

martin_helm · January 26, 2012, 4:01pm

Am 26.01.2012 15:32, schrieb Dave Howorth:
> I’m confused here. Object-oriented programming languages preceded the
> design of Pascal. Simula-67 is said to have been a direct influence on
> Wirth, for example.
I speak not about the OO paradigm itself and when it was invented, but
when it went into the language.
I learnt Pascal a bit more than two decades ago when it was already 20
years old and it was only procedural at that time. I came across the OO
implementations in Pascal several years later.

> I can only suppose that you are talking about Object
> Pascal as being later than Pascal, but they are two different languages
> and Object Pascal is not really relevant to the discussion.
>
It is part of some Pascal implementations like Delphi and as far as I
know also available in Free Pascal (FPC).

> I’m confused again. I think what you’re implying is that Pascal is an
> academic language unsuited to real world problems. As somebody who has
> written oil rig control programs in Pascal, I can assure you that that
> is not the case.
>
That shows that our experiences are different. I also programmed for
real world problems in Pascal (made a program for parameter
identification in diagnostic ultrasound sonography with it - written
with Delphi) and it was a major pain compared to even C++ in which I
rewrote the program later and which made me at least two times more
productive or also compared to modern Fortran dialects (Fortran 95 and
later Fortran 2003) for heavy numerical problems, which I use still
today (I still can read old Fortran IV and 77 code which is also
sometimes a benefit when looking for algorithms, but I would never use
it myself again).

This just shows that we end users of the languages are completely
different personalities and probably says not much about the language
itself.

So please take all I say as what it is: A highly subjective point of
view from my personal experience over the last quarter of a century. I
do not claim that it is an objective truth.

hendersj · January 27, 2012, 4:03am

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:23:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> On 2012-01-25 23:50, Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>>> My personal choice would be Pascal or Modula. I’m old fashioned.
>>
>> For an older audience, I’d be inclined to agree.
>>
>> But for schoolkids, I don’t know that the joys of Pascal’s string
>> processing facilities would be adequate to hold their attention.
>
>
>
> Mmm… 11 to 18. 18 are not that young. For 11… perhaps. But I could
> program my TI calculator at about 15. O:-)

I started CBM BASIC at about 12. Yeah, 18 I’d be inclined to do
something like Pascal or C.

> Pascal was designed for teaching.

Yes.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

martin_helm · January 27, 2012, 12:09pm

For the older students (16-18) it might be worth to look at MIT’s Open
Course Ware for some impressions.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/video-lectures/

robin_listas · January 27, 2012, 2:26pm

On 2012-01-27 04:03, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:23:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> I started CBM BASIC at about 12. Yeah, 18 I’d be inclined to do
> something like Pascal or C.

I read a basic manual at about 14…17, I think. The manual talked about
using a teleprinter, terminals were not known. The only thing programmable
I managed to own was a TI57 calculator. No one of my friends knew what I
talked about so excitedly. Whats a computer? A sci-fi gadget?

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

martin_helm · January 27, 2012, 4:34pm

Am 27.01.2012 12:09, schrieb Martin Helm:
> For the older students (16-18) it might be worth to look at MIT’s Open
> Course Ware for some impressions.
> http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/video-lectures/
>
>
@interele

Just in case you still follow this thread, I also want to add some links
for Pascal if you like to go for that

An introduction to the language itself
http://www.taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal

Comprehensive documentation for the Free Pascal Compiler and the
integrated development environment for it (Lazarus), it is actively
maintained and available for all major platforms
http://wiki.freepascal.org/

fpc and lazarus are available for openSUSE (only the link for 12.1) here
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/pascal/openSUSE_12.1

A windows installer for those of your students who use windows at home
is here
http://www.freepascal.org/download.var

hendersj · January 30, 2012, 6:13pm

On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:09:00 +0000, Martin Helm wrote:

> For the older students (16-18) it might be worth to look at MIT’s Open
> Course Ware for some impressions.
> http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-
science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/
video-lectures/

Good point, I usually remember that, but yeah - my stepson is also doing
CS classes for free through Harvard (ISTR). Been learning C so far.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

interele · January 31, 2012, 9:56am

Yes I am still following this thread. It was been really interesting, although I seem
to be having real trouble connecting to these forums at times.

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed.

best wishes

Mal

djh-novell · January 31, 2012, 11:46am

Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:09:00 +0000, Martin Helm wrote:
>
>> For the older students (16-18) it might be worth to look at MIT’s Open
>> Course Ware for some impressions.
>> http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-
> science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/
> video-lectures/
>
> Good point, I usually remember that, but yeah - my stepson is also doing
> CS classes for free through Harvard (ISTR). Been learning C so far.

Thanks for prompting me to take a look, Jim. I’ve been aware of the MIT
videos for a few years but I don’t need an introductory programming
course so hadn’t bothered looking at this course. What I found most
interesting was if you click on the ‘Readings’ link to

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/readings/

You’ll find some good material on learning Python! All the exercises
also use it. So it seems if the OP chose to teach the kids with Python,
this site would be an exceptionally useful resource.