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From: holloway@drivax.UUCP (Bruce Holloway)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Teaching object-oriented paradigm to beginners?
Message-ID: <746@drivax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Jan-87 12:19:25 EST
Article-I.D.: drivax.746
Posted: Fri Jan  9 12:19:25 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Jan-87 01:39:39 EST
References: <4000001@nucsrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: holloway@drivax.UUCP (Bruce Holloway)
Organization: Digital Research, Inc., Monterey
Lines: 25

In article <4000001@nucsrl.UUCP> gore@nucsrl.UUCP (Jacob Gore) writes:
>Or, if you are against this idea, and somebody else was introducing it, what
>arguments would you use against it?

Object programming languages are nice, and are readily understandable,
especially if your mind hasn't already been warped by BASIC or something.

However, at UNH, everyone is required to use the computer to some extent.
The first question non-engineers ask is, "what good will this do me?" There
aren't a lot of surveying programs written in Smalltalk, for instance. So they
spend some time learning an object language, and immediately forget it. Then
they get out into the field, and have to use Fortran, or Pascal, or BASIC
(my brother-in-law is a surveyor, and that's what HE uses), and are totally
unprepared.

Worse, they have been taught to think in a totally different manner wrt
programming. So the only thing left them is some experience with computers.
And even then, probably not a micro.

I'd probably pick a structured BASIC to teach to beginners who were unlikely
to take any more programming courses. Or Pascal.
-- 
....!ucbvax!hplabs!amdahl!drivax!holloway
"What do you mean, 'almost dead'?" "Well, when you stop breathing, and moving
around, and seeing things... that kind of almost dead."