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Re: Your eternal soul is at stake

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David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:

> On 25/10/16 12:26, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>> 
>>> On 23/10/2016 21:51, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>> I once taught programming using Pascal (at a university), but that was
>>>> (good grief!) three decades ago and it was the last year that Pascal was
>>>> used.
>>>
>>> What did they switch to after Pascal?
>> 
>> "C with classes" as is was then called.
>> 
>
> When I was at university, we used whatever language the course lecturer
> liked best.  For the most part, we were expected to just learn the
> language as needed.  So the algorithm design class used Modula-2, the
> operating systems design class used C, the parallel algorithms class
> used Occam.  I think the only language we were actually taught was for
> the early classes on programming from specifications (mathematically
> deriving provably correct code), using a functional programming language
> similar to Haskell.

Yes, the undergraduate courses were as you describe, but the course I'm
talking about was a rather special case that may no longer be available.
It was what was called a "conversion MSc" and lasted only one year.  It
was very intensive and had to get the students up to speed with
programming so they could tackle a project for their dissertation as
well as having a practical basis into which they could fit all the other
learning.

They saw a toy Pascal-like language in the compilers course, and they
learned some assembler in the architecture course, but there was not
enough time to cover several language paradigms in depth.

> Concentrating too much on a particular language at university is, I
> think, a mistake - the emphasis should be on development processes,
> software design, algorithms, etc., rather than the details of a
> particular language.  If you teach the foundations properly then the
> student can pick up the details of a new language in a very short
> time.

s/at university/in a 3-year degree/ and I agree.  We certainly hoped
that students would leave the MSc able to pick up alternative languages
easily, but it would always be harder than for the graduates of the BSc
courses.

-- 
Ben.

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Your eternal soul is at stake "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-10-21 09:00 -0700
  Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-10-21 09:46 -0700
  Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-10-21 09:59 -0700
  Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-10-21 11:02 -0700
    Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-10-21 17:52 -0700
      Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-10-22 07:30 -0700
        Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-10-23 03:36 -0700
          Re: Your eternal soul is at stake gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2016-10-23 11:43 +0000
  Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-10-23 23:25 +0800
    Re: Your eternal soul is at stake Melzzzzz <mel@zzzzz.com> - 2016-10-23 17:38 +0200
      Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-10-23 23:49 +0800
        Re: Your eternal soul is at stake Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-23 21:51 +0100
          Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-10-25 12:55 +0800
          Re: Your eternal soul is at stake BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-10-25 10:29 +0100
            Re: Your eternal soul is at stake Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-25 11:26 +0100
              Re: Your eternal soul is at stake David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-10-25 12:47 +0200
                Re: Your eternal soul is at stake Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-25 12:36 +0100
              Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-10-25 22:29 +0800
                Re: Your eternal soul is at stake Melzzzzz <mel@zzzzz.com> - 2016-10-25 16:54 +0200
        Re: Your eternal soul is at stake Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-10-23 19:28 -0400
          Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Chris M. Thomasson" <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2016-10-23 16:33 -0700
            Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-10-25 12:52 +0800
              Re: Your eternal soul is at stake "Chris M. Thomasson" <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2016-10-24 22:35 -0700

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