johnh@wheaton.UUCP (John Doc Hayward) (11/09/87)
We are going to try modula-2 as an intro to cs course. I would appreciate
recomendations on text books on this type of course. Students background
would range from no previous programming experince to 1 year of high school
pascal background.
Thanks in advance. johnh...
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Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8bCFAJS@ECNCDC.BITNET (11/13/87)
1(* From: John Doc Hayward *)
<ihnp4!laidbak!spl1!wheaton!johnh@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> *)
(* Subject: Intro Modual-2 Text recommendations wanted *)CFAJS@ECNCDC.BITNET (11/13/87)
(* From: John Doc Hayward *)
<ihnp4!laidbak!spl1!wheaton!johnh@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> *)
(* Subject: Intro Modual-2 Text recommendations wanted *)
(* We are going to try modula-2 as an intro to cs course. *)
I have tried several Modula-2 systems on the IBM PC family, and I have
yet to find one I would be willing to try to teach to novices. Does
the question imply that there is such a system?
What is it and is there a version inexpensive enough for students
to buy?
Tony Schaeffer, Eastern Ill. Univ. Charleston Ill.MFELDMAN@GWUVM.BITNET (Mike Feldman) (11/16/87)
I have no big problems with the one from Modula Corp in Provo, Utah. I haven't tried teaching freshmen from it. I guess the biggest problem is that it has no integrated editor. But ModCorp will allow you to copy and redistribute the compiler to students for a very low fee (call them for details). The tutorial in the front of their documentation is a reasonable discussion of Modula-2 amd libraries. Configuring the compiler for a 2-floppy system is not a job for a novice. What I have done is prepare a reasonable 2-floppy package which I allow students to copy. In both the Modula-2 and Ada worlds the compiler builders have implicitly declared that their languages ain't for babies, by building such poor student-oriented packages. Those of us who want to teach real languages from CS1 forward have an up-hill battle to fight.