🚀 go-pugleaf

jmartin@cs.ucla.edu (Jay Martin) writes:
> Why start with something old and flawed?  Whats the point of wasting
> effort of changing syntax's to Modula*, Ada, Eiffel, etc.  Also it
> doesn't have modern concepts.  The switch is always necessary and
> it DOES diminish its value as a teaching language. Strike 1.

First off, why modern concepts in a first quarter/semester class?
Teach the basics first, then teach the decade's fashion later.

Second, a switch, in my view, is important enough to make an effort
to keep it.  This is what discourages me about programs wanting
to teach C++ as a first class, because there is a much higher chance
of the student *never* seeing anything but C++ until they graduate.

> The mathematical underpinnings of Computer Science are useless at
> best.  That Computer Science can't intelligently separate mathematics
> from the fields of Computers and Software in a practical way is
> indicative of why they are generally not relevant to the advances in
> the software area today.  I have seen Scheme, I am not impressed.  For
> being a mastribatorial theory-head: strike 3.

CS is based upon math.  You can't escape that.  That you may have a
job that doesn't use it is irrelevant.  The primary purpose of CS is
not to create software engineers.  The primary purpose is to prepare
the graduate to work in many varied areas of computer science,
*including* areas they have no experience in (ie, things not yet
invented).  It is only the short sighted people who think of the
university as a trade school who can't see a purpose for theory.

A student who doesn't learn theory (either in school or on their
own), is severely hampered when it becomes time to adapt.

> Well, then what ARE they using in their (hopefully significant) course
> work later on.  From my experience in the US it is C/C++.  And
> it was an observation not an argument.

It shouldn't make a whit of difference what they use in later courses.
Should students learn arithmetic if they're just going to be using
calculators later?  Should they learn number theory if they're not
going to be a professional mathematician?  Should they even bother
learning C/C++ if they're going to get a job doing Cobol or Fortran
(which more ubiquitous than C++)?

> C and Unix are vomit.  Strike 4.

Ah, now you've revealed yourself as not actually having any
underpinnings for your arguments, and absolutely no objectivity.  Give
some reasons, so we can at least assume you know what you're talking
about.  This is the sort of argument you hear from the ignorant and
politicians, and I hope you don't want to be associated with them.

> The fundamentals of Computer Science are a joke. Church-Turing thesis
> which is really mathematics is in CS, while practical language design
> is somehow excluded from CS.  This is just indicative of why
> academic Computer Science is not only worthless but harmful.

Ahem.  Do you really, honestly, believe that in order to teach some
theory in CS, you have to discard ALL practicality?  I really feel
sorry for you if you came from such a school.  Maybe you're just
bitter about the extra work you had to do?  Do you also complain about
the waste of time when you had to take English, History or Physics?

Practical language design IS a part of CS.  Wake up, there's not
evidence that it is not, unless you care to present an explicit
example (including the school, curriculum, and requirements).  Theory
IS a part of CS as well.  Some people use theoretical stuff all the
time (and sadly, some never learned any).  Most however, don't
explicitly use it that much - but they DO make use of the results of
exercising their thinking processes.  Even if you think of CS as
being only programming; programming is an abstract process, and
theory is always important for abstract thinking.

Don't confuse a university with a trade school.
-- 
Darin Johnson
djohnson@ucsd.edu
    Where am I?  In the village...  What do you want?  Information...