Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
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From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer)
Subject: Re: Smalltalk in CS 1
Message-ID: <1994Nov2.120152.7543@wavehh.hanse.de>
Organization: The poor LISPers' hacking kitchen
References: <9410211433.AA13245@sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 94 12:01:52 GMT
Lines: 31

Gerald Weiss 718-951-5945 <weiss@SCI.BROOKLYN.CUNY.EDU> writes:

>The CS department at Brooklyn College is having an abstract discussion
>concerning the language used in the intro programming course. One
>opinion is that the majority of the world (translate to USA) is using
>C in CS 1 with a small but growing number using C++. From Lalonde's
>'Discovering Smalltalk' I know that he is using Smalltalk in CS 1, but
>I was wondering if I could get some feedback from out there of other
>institutions using Smalltalk for intro programming. Any editorializing
>would be welcome as well.

Bad choice, I think.

CS students should learn the whole range of programming techniques
and/or how high-level expressions are mapped to hardware.

Smalltalk forces one style. Using different styles in Smalltalk means
misusing the language. You'd better use a Lisp dialect (scheme) if you
focus on giving an overview of high-level constructs or C if you focus
on mapping to hardware. 

There an ongoing tendency to use pure OO languages for CS courses.
Horrible, if you ask me. There are many areas where OO is not the best
approach. Have a look into 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer
Programs' to see how a Scheme-based course can show what OO is all
about without closing the stundets' mind.

Since we're in comp.lang.smalltalk, Smalltalk is one of my favorite
languages, but openness to different styles is one of the weak
points. 
-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%}- Martin             Smile!  :-)
