Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!hubcap!billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Which language to teach first? Message-ID: <6259@hubcap.clemson.edu> Date: 14 Aug 89 20:05:53 GMT References: <5666@ficc.uu.net> Sender: news@hubcap.clemson.edu Reply-To: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu Lines: 30 From article <5666@ficc.uu.net>, by peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva): >> but we are training professionals here, not unsophisticated users. > > I beg to disagree. Your students are unsophisticated users. They have a long > way to go to being professionals. Oh yes, that's the goal of the course of > study they're engaged in, and they'll get there soon enough, but you can't > assume that's where they're at now. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line; the more time they spend in a professional frame of mind, the greater their professional capabilities will be when it comes time to put their extremely costly education to practical use. > And bear in mind that they're not all going to be professional computer > scientists or software engineers. Some of them, maybe the majority, will be > professional physicists, or materials engineers, or statisticians, or even > historians or accountants. In that case, let them take the introductory course for non-majors. If they sign up for the CS major track, they should receive a clear picture of what the Real World is all about, not some glossed-over pretend world where nobody has to worry about implementing anything. Only with a clear understanding of what being a professional computer scientist / software engineer is all about will they be in a position to ultimately decide to be an accountant instead... :-) :-) :-) Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu