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Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 12:18:13 -0500
Subject: Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language
From: Larry Martell <larry.martell@gmail.com>
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On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 11:59 AM, Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 2013-12-17, Wolfgang Keller <feliphil@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>>> I was also taught C as an undergrad but having already learned Java, C
>>> and C++ before arriving at University I found the C course very easy
>>> so my own experience is not representative. Many of the other students
>>> at that time found the course too hard and just cheated on all the
>>> assignments (I remember one students offering to fix/finish anyone's
>>> assignment in exchange for a bottle of cider!).

I did that, but my fee was a case of beer.

>>
>> The problem with the C class wasn't that it was "hard". I had passed my
>> Pascal class, which taught nearly exactly the same issues with
>> "straight A"s before (without ever having writeen any source code ever
>> before). And by standard cognitive testing standards, I'm not exactly
>> considered to be an idiot.
>
> I agree that C is a awful pedagogical language.  When I was in
> university, the first language for Computer Science or Computer
> Engineering students was Pascal.  After that, there were classes that
> surveyed Prolog, SNOBOL, LISP, Modula, APL, FORTRAN, COBOL, etc.  If
> you were an "other" engineering/science major, you learned FORTRAN
> first (and last).  I think there may also have been some business
> types who were taught BASIC.
>
> C wasn't taught at all.

It wasn't for me either when I went to college in the late 1970's.
Pascal first, then FORTRAN, then IBM 360 assembler. That was all the
formal language training I had. (I had taught myself BASIC in high
school.)