Hello Toby, Saturday, June 4, 2005, 1:50:30 AM, you wrote: TD> On 6/3/05 11:00 AM, "Chuck Allison" <chuck@freshsources.com> wrote:
I think VB is the absolute worst way to introduce programming,
TD> Worse than COBOL? Or the C pre-processor? :-) Well, worse than what is being used today. These aren't on the plate.
and emphasizing GUI in a first exposure to computing is a mistake.
TD> My feeling is that it was not so much GUI-first as design-first that made TD> the VB course I taught so interesting. By drawing a GUI first, you are doing TD> some design, and even making decisions about certain variables and data TD> structures. Your goal is clear: you want to write a program that implements TD> the GUI. And it's not just the visuals that students would work out before TD> writing code, but they also thought about the interaction, and how the TD> interface should behave. It makes programming very goal-oriented. Teaching design early is a good thing. What I object to over-emphasizing GUIs is that newbies feel that 1) Event-driven programming is the only way to go, and 2) if there isn't a GUI, you're not programming. I am reacting to a strong contingent that has been in my face a lot. Thee are many who really believe this. GUI has it's place, though, as I have suggested. There are actually subtle dangers in event-driven design itself. I heartily suggest everyone read Miro Samek's "Who Moved My State", C/C++ Users Journal, April 2003. He says it much better than I can, and he's one who Really Knows. TD> I more commonly hear students complain that CS doesn't do a good job of TD> preparing them for a career in software engineering. That it is too focused TD> on esoteric theory, and that too many (university) faculty hold their noses TD> when writing programs. I have heard this too, but my college is not one of those. We cater to industry, while not skimping on theory. -- Best regards, Chuck