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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"?