Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!mit-eddie!nessus From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) Newsgroups: net.lang,net.flame Subject: Re: Re: Object oriented languages Message-ID: <2228@mit-eddie.UUCP> Date: Fri, 22-Jun-84 04:39:57 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.2228 Posted: Fri Jun 22 04:39:57 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 23-Jun-84 02:59:19 EDT References: <268@harvard.UUCP>,<2159@mit-eddie.UUCP> <277@harvard.UUCP> Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA Lines: 42 > From: brownell@harvard.UUCP (Dave Brownell) > About the rest of the flame ... just HOW do you claim to know > more about the course than the people who taught it? Were you there five years ago when I took AMS11? How do you know? I know several people who have taken AM110. Their description of what they did in the course matches very closely with the material covered in the course I took. Were they lying? Their problem sets were very similar. Were they forged? If there is a significant difference between the courses that makes my argument invalid, please tell me what it is, instead of just making an unsupported assertion. > And I don't see why the CPU-intensive nature of object oriented > programming systems shouldn't enter into the planning for the > next edition of an experimental course. I never said it shouldn't. You should make sure that you have enough computer resources to provide a decent education. If this requires acquiring a more powerful computer or moving to a workstation environment, then this is what should be done. Harvard shouldn't have any problems finding enough money to do this: the students are paying ten grand a year to get a good education. > Re "neat concepts": quantum physics is neat too, but don't you > teach mechanics first? To understand quantum mechanics you have to understand a lot of background material. To understand many important fundamental computer science concepts, you don't. To understand Special Relativity, you don't need to understand a lot of background material, and learning it introduces many important concepts and can and should be used as an example of how to think about problems in physics. In fact, in the mechanics course I took here, the first thing covered was indeed Special Relativity. -- -Doug Alan mit-eddie!nessus Nessus@MIT-MC "What does 'I' mean"?