AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS.BITNET ("David A. Lyons") (03/21/89)
>Date: Sun, 19 Mar 89 15:18:39 GMT >From: David Douthitt > <astroatc!nicmad!madnix!rat%speedy.wisc.edu@BRL.MIL> >Subject: BASIC to Assembly > >[...] PARDON? > >Where I'm going to school, Programming I (ONE) is Assembler. THEN in >Programming II you get to learn COBOL. (Ok, so it's ugly... I'll >survive it!) A while back, on which group I forget, there was a lot >of discussion whether Assembly should be taught first or second >semester. I don't recall anyone NOT recommending we teach it. Without actually seeing how things are taught in your school, I feel it's a mistake to start with assembly. And the COBOL??? Eek. COBOL may get you a job, but not my idea of an enjoyable one (because I don't find programming in COBOL enjoyable). At the University of Iowa, the Computer Science program starts with 2 semesters of Pascal, 1 semester of assembly, some good useful mathish stuff (proofs, sets, languages, state machines). This seems like a perfectly reasonable beginning for a CS degree program. Admittedly, I was not a typical CS student--I already had a solid understanding of assembly language before I took the Pascal courses. >======== David Douthitt :::: Madison, WI :::: The Stainless Steel Rat ======== >FidoNet: 1:121/2 ::::: WittiNet: "Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice." :::::: >UseNet: ...{rutgers|ucbvax|harvard}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!rat >ArpaNet: madnix!rat@cs.wisc.edu {decvax|att}! --David A. Lyons bitnet: awcttypa@uiamvs DAL Systems CompuServe: 72177,3233 P.O. Box 287 GEnie mail: D.LYONS2 North Liberty, IA 52317 AppleLinkPE: Dave Lyons
krazy@claris.com (Jeff Erickson) (03/23/89)
>>From: David Douthitt >> >>Where I'm going to school, Programming I (ONE) is Assembler. THEN in >>Programming II you get to learn COBOL. (Ok, so it's ugly... I'll >>survive it!) A while back, on which group I forget, there was a lot >>of discussion whether Assembly should be taught first or second >>semester. I don't recall anyone NOT recommending we teach it. At Rice the current curriculum is two semesters of Pascal, one semester combined C/68000 assembly, one semester of Modula-2, in that order. That's JUST the programming classes. Assembly most certainly should NOT be first. But that's my opinion -- I'm a top-down programmer. I tea the problem apart before I even attempt to prgram it, and assembly requires me to tear it down too far. (I'd probably teach LISP first semester, believe it or not.) No! Not COBOL! Run away! Run away! AAAAAAAaaaaaauuuuugggggghhhhh!!!!! -- Jeff Erickson \ Internet: krazy@claris.com AppleLink: Erickson4 Claris Corporation \ UUCP: {ames,apple,portal,sun,voder}!claris!krazy 415/960-2693 \________________________________________________________ ____________________/ "I'm so heppy I'm mizzabil!" -- Krazy Kat
huang@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (Howard Huang) (03/24/89)
In article <9139@claris.com> krazy@claris.com (Jeff Erickson) writes: >>>From: David Douthitt >>> >>>Where I'm going to school, Programming I (ONE) is Assembler. THEN in >>>Programming II you get to learn COBOL... > >At Rice the current curriculum is two semesters of Pascal, one semester >combined C/68000 assembly, one semester of Modula-2, in that order. That's >JUST the programming classes. At Harvard, the two introductory computer courses (each one semester) teach Pascal and then LISP/68000 assembly/C. The latter course, "Systems Programming," has as a final project the writing of a LISP interpreter. After you get through these, there are no more required language courses. DEFINITELY no COBOL. You can go on and take classes in AI, operating systems, compilers,... ============================= Howard C. Huang Wigglesworth B-12 Harvard College Cambridge, MA 02138 huang@husc4.harvard.edu =============================