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To: python-list@python.org
From: Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 20:20:08 -0500
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On Tue, 17 Dec 2013 12:18:13 -0500, Larry Martell <larry.martell@gmail.com>
declaimed the following:

>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.)

	Pascal was an elective at my school -- small class size having to share
a pair of CRDS LSI-11s running UCSD Pascal.

	The CompSci core curriculum had parallel threads of

(intro) FORTRAN, (adv) FORTRAN, Sigma-6 Assembler (Meta-Symbol)
(intro) COBOL, (adv) COBOL, Database (DBTG Network model)

	The OS course also used the CRDS LSI-11 and Macro-11 (which was taught
in the first few sessions, one was expected to be familiar with assembly
language programming on the Sigma)

	I took APL as independent study just to get the last three (only needed
two) credits for graduation.

	The algorithms class was a bit of a free-for-all; we where permitted to
use any language the instructor could make sense of -- which meant FORTRAN,
COBOL, Pascal, BASIC, and Assembly; SNOBOL and APL were not viable. I ended
up using BASIC -- on a system that only allowed four open files at a time
-- and I used program chaining to switch among the primary functions of the
assignment (a hashed head multiple linked list "phone directory"). I don't
even want to imagine the effort it took in Assembler (memory claims someone
DID choose that implementation)

-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/