Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!bellcore!rutgers!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!kth!draken!tut!tukki!tarvaine From: tarvaine@tukki.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Which language to teach first? Message-ID: <1114@tukki.jyu.fi> Date: 9 Aug 89 15:41:03 GMT References: <2551@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> Reply-To: tarvaine@tukki.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen) Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland Lines: 16 In Jyvaskyla University Pascal is taught as the first language. The most important reason (which disqualifies Ada in particular) is the availability of cheap and easy-to-use compilers for PCs. I suspect this is the decisive factor in quite a few places. I can't, however, resist the temptation to quote Edsger Dijkstra here [describing his idea of an introductory programming course in the 1988 SIGCSE Award Lecture (titled "On the cruelty of really teaching computer science"!)]: "... we see to it that the programming language in question has _not_ been implemented on campus so that students are protected from the temptation to test their programs." -- Tapani Tarvainen (tarvaine@jyu.fi, tarvainen@finjyu.bitnet)