john@nmt.edu (John Shipman) (07/23/90)
Mike Segel (segel@tellabs.com) writes (in misc.jobs.contract): +-- | At times I argued with some profs that they needed to teach | C. Why? Because almost all of the industry was using it, and | most of our upper level classes required it. His response was | that "we are not a trade school" and that you can learn it on | your own. +-- At New Mexico Tech, the CS department offers several ``practicum'' courses for specific skills. Most are one-hour, lab-type courses. I have taught practica in C, Unix, and TeX. Granted, these are not theory courses, but I believe that a blend of theory and practice is going to do more good for our industry-bound grads than pure theory. They are not required, so students on academic tracks can ignore them. Service courses like these also help to improve our department's relations with the rest of the school. -- John Shipman/Computer Science Department/New Mexico Tech/Socorro, NM 87801 (505)835-5301; john@jupiter.nmt.edu
petersja@debussy.cs.colostate.edu (james peterson) (07/23/90)
In article <1990Jul22.235418.7226@nmt.edu> john@nmt.edu (John Shipman) writes: >Mike Segel (segel@tellabs.com) writes (in misc.jobs.contract): >+-- >| At times I argued with some profs that they needed to teach >| C. Why? Because almost all of the industry was using it, and >| most of our upper level classes required it. His response was >| that "we are not a trade school" and that you can learn it on >| your own. >+-- This is interesting, since I have heard this same complaint here at Colorado State for years, and provided exactly the same response. There are further complications, since, for some reason, the general public appears to perceive C programming as the key to the "high paying job with a future." I can't recall how many calls I've had from people in the community, ranging from house-wives to auto mechanics, who want to take a course in C. Most often it turns out that they have no prior programming experience, and no interest in anything more than a C course which, they think, will open the door to riches beyond imagination. Most of my attempts to explain how wrong-headed this notion is are met with unvarnished hostility... As for our CS majors, for a couple of years now we have expected that, after three courses using Pascal, plus a couple of architecture courses, a normally intelligent student could learn C in a rather short time. I know students who have learned C with a great deal of facility in just three days. On the other hand, many students are simply too lazy to do this. At last we broke down and decided to offer a course in C. It would run one-half a semester (7 weeks) for 2 semester hours credit. It is purely an elective course for CS majors -- no credit towards the major. And to take care of the match-book problem, it has two pascal courses (ACM1 and ACM2) as prerequisites -- it cannot practically be taken without prior programming in a language with dynamic storage allocation and some operational data structures. I welcome comment on this and remain interested in what others do.... -- james lee peterson petersja@handel.cs.colostate.edu dept. of computer science colorado state university "Some ignorance is invincible." ft. collins, colorado 80523
reggie@dinsdale.paradyne.com (George W. Leach) (07/24/90)
In article <8016@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> petersja@debussy.cs.colostate.edu (james peterson) writes: >In article <1990Jul22.235418.7226@nmt.edu> john@nmt.edu (John Shipman) writes: >>Mike Segel (segel@tellabs.com) writes (in misc.jobs.contract): >>| At times I argued with some profs that they needed to teach >>| C. Why? Because almost all of the industry was using it, and >>| most of our upper level classes required it. His response was >>| that "we are not a trade school" and that you can learn it on >>| your own. >This is interesting, since I have heard this same complaint here at >Colorado State for years, and provided exactly the same response. There >are further complications, since, for some reason, the general public >appears to perceive C programming as the key to the "high paying job >with a future." I can't recall how many calls I've had from people in >the community, ranging from house-wives to auto mechanics, who want to >take a course in C. Most often it turns out that they have no prior >programming experience, and no interest in anything more than a C course >which, they think, will open the door to riches beyond imagination. Most >of my attempts to explain how wrong-headed this notion is are met with >unvarnished hostility... While it may be wrong, as long as there are people out there who will hire someone with a minimal background and the appropriate in vogue skill, there will be a demand for that skill. If you don't fufill that need, someone else will. I teach at a local junior college where we get an interesting mix of people. For the student enrolled in a program geared towards entry into a four year engineering program or towards earning an associates degree, the only use for such a course is to put another language on the resume. As most engineering programs still require FORTRAN, that is the only required programming course. There is a course in C programming, which is aimed at someone who has had a previous course in programming. However, we get all sorts of people registering for it with all sorts of backgrounds. My personal feeling on the Pascal versus C arguments are that eventually the capabilities of Pascal will no longer serve the student in some advanced courses. For example, I was rather appalled at how an implementation of bibblt() was presented in the second edition of Foley, Van Dam, et al..... Pascal was used, but with the authors' own unique extensions to handle the fact that Pascal does not deal very well with the pointer manipulation requirements of bitblt(). I thought that using C would have been far more appropriate. With tools like Turbo C around I don't feel that the old standby argument of Pascal is easier on the beginner holds much water anymore. Furthermore, there are other languages besides those in the vein of C and Pascal that should be examined anyway. It has been 15 years since I took the Intro to CS course. Surely there must be a more suitable language out there to aid the beginner, teach concepts that they can carry with them for years to come, and serve them in the advanced courses. I've often seen scheme kicked around in these discussions. How well could it meet these requirements? George George W. Leach AT&T Paradyne (uunet|att)!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-133 Phone: 1-813-530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 FAX: 1-813-530-8224 Largo, FL 34649-2826 USA