On Feb 26, 2006, at 8:23 AM, Arthur wrote:
Brad has been quiet about his publication
Problem Solving with Algorithms and Data Structures Using Python
Thanks for the plug.
http://www.fbeedle.com/053-9.html
It's certainly of interest to me.
Of course Alan Kay expressed this week that the teaching of algorithms and data structures in CS is a problem:
that: """nothing exciting about computing today has to do with data structures and algorithms""" (Kay being paraphrased at
http://www.windley.com/archives/2006/02/alan_kay_is_com.shtml)
I don't know how accurate the paraphrasing is of what Kay said but the analogy doesn't work very well for me. To quote from the above link: One of Alan’s undergraduate degrees is in molecular biology. He can’t understand it anymore despite having tried to review new developments every few years. That’s not true in computer science. The basics are still mostly the same. If you go to most campuses, there is a single computer science department and the first course in computer science is almost indistinguishable from the first course in 1960. They’re about data structures and algorithms despite the fact that almost nothing exciting about computing today has to do with data structures and algorithms. I can go over and check with my biology colleagues tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure they still teach undergrads about molecules and cells in introductory biology. Sure the latest developments are hard to understand but I doubt they are being taught at the introductory level. Data structures and algorithms may not be exciting (for Kay), but they are as fundamental to computing as cells are to biology.