[Info-vax] And another one bites the dust....

[Dan Cross]

In article <sv0ah4$fuk$1 at panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge at panix.com> wrote:
>Academics shouldn't be teaching programming languages, they should be
>teaching programming concepts.  If you know C or Pascal, learning 
>how to write the procedure division code in COBOL should be a matter
>of a couple hour's study.  Once you know the concepts, learning the
>syntax is easy.  (Frustrating, perhaps, because the COBOL syntax is
>so horrible, but easy.)
>
>So, I don't think there is any need to teach the programming part of
>COBOL in school.
>
>What's interesting about COBOL is that there is a big data description
>language attached to it, and the data description language is different
>than anything else students will have seen.  So I think it's important
>to at least talk about COBOL (and maybe RPG) because some of the basic
>paradigms behind it are different than that of a canonical programming
>language.  
>
>But I don't think this should take more than a day or two in a programming
>language survey class, because once students understand the basic concepts
>they can figure it out on their own if they need it.
>
>Understanding the basic concepts, though, is important to figure out how
>some modern systems got to be the way they are today.
>
>It doesn't matter whether a thing is dead or not, it matters whether a
>thing can be used to teach useful concepts.  Real CS programs are about
>teaching concepts, not methods.  It's expected that students can learn
>methods as needed.

Really well put.  I agree on all counts, though I might say that
academics should be teaching computer science; consider theory,
for example, which is important but independent of many languages.

Certainly, algorithmic thinking that could be directly translated
to programming skills should be emphasized.

	- Dan C.