Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!wuarchive!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Which language to teach first? Message-ID: <5666@ficc.uu.net> Date: 13 Aug 89 17:32:35 GMT References: <6774@titan.UUCP> <6251@hubcap.clemson.edu> Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 17 In article <6251@hubcap.clemson.edu>, billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,) writes: > 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. 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. -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | writing is the sentence Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | you are now reading"