Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!gatech!bloom-beacon!think!ames!ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!killer!elg From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) Newsgroups: soc.college,comp.edu Subject: Re: First Language Taught in CSC degree track Message-ID: <1150@killer.UUCP> Date: Sat, 18-Jul-87 01:15:39 EDT Article-I.D.: killer.1150 Posted: Sat Jul 18 01:15:39 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jul-87 08:49:12 EDT References: <1472@super.upenn.edu.upenn.edu> Organization: Bayou Telecommunications Lines: 38 Xref: mnetor soc.college:770 comp.edu:508 in article <1472@super.upenn.edu.upenn.edu>, shaffer@operations.dccs.upenn.edu (Earl Shaffer) says: > Xref: killer soc.college:939 comp.edu:480 > > I have a questions which should stir up a debate. > > Which language should be taught first in the Computer Science > track for incoming freshman? Scheme, of course! With _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ out there, why bother with squashing semi-colons in Pascal, fer chrissakes? I spent most of my freshman year hitting errors like these: procedure barf (j:array[1..20] of char); .... if x > y and y < z then begin ... end; else ..... Whoobay. I can think of funner things to do! Was almost a relief to learn PL/1 -- just put a semicolon at the end of each line, and it's happy as a lamb (note that this was before Unix and "C" became popular). As for learning "C" as the first language... "C" has a fairly complex syntax, too. For example, if a freshsman first sees for(i=0;i