Date   : Sun, 02 Apr 2006 17:40:01 +0100
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Basic & BBC Basic

Andy Armstrong wrote:
> On 2 Apr 2006, at 11:15, David Hunt wrote:
> [snip]
>> I would agree, programming
>> is essential for those activities, but as for the language, a simple 
>> one to
>> start with, BBC Basic seems like a sane choice, gives students a quick 
>> taste
>> of programming. If programming was deemed as really important, I would
>> encourage the use of C++ (C++ Builder/VS.NET 2005) or Pascal (Delphi),
>> although poor teaching can really screw up a budding C++ developer!
> 
> BBC Basic, C++ and Pascal are all poor choices. 

Agreed. BASIC's too unstructured, Pascal is a little too behind the times, and 
C++ is about the worst example of an OO language that it's possible to come up 
with (not that the competition does much better - Java's one of the few 
languages that's been designed to be both OO and 'clean' from the ground up)

Note I'm not saying that an OO language is any kind of holy grail - there are 
plenty of cases where a procedural language like C might be better, or 
assembler for low-level work.

It's a shame that the PHP designers made such a total mess of it, and I get 
the impression that Python isn't a lot better - incremental design in stages 
rather than an effort to get things right from the start... :-(

On the "only teaching Windows to students" side of things, I get the 
impression that full CS courses aren't any better these days - it's all about 
bolting other people's bits of software together in graphical environments 
rather than teaching people the basics of how to actually *write* stuff :-(


Maybe the whole industry will just implode in a few years time due to lack of 
talent?

cheers

Jules