On 24 Nov 2004 18:31:13 GMT, Gabriel Zachmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> You know, I keep wondering exactly what we will be teaching as programming > languages become easier and easier to learn. > > Programming itself? -- won't be enough for a whole semester. Oh no way. You could teach a whole semester just using flow chart stule diagrams. The concepts of programming stay the same regardless of language. You just won't need to spend so much time on syntax, you can focus on the real issues like jump tables, data types - and how the data structure shapes the code structure! Issues of locking, error handling strategies, threading, event-handling etc etc... All of these stop being advanced features and move into mainstream. Someday.... :-) > Another question is: can you teach effectively the inner workings, if you > teach only a dynamic language? Yes, its just different inner workings. :-) But to be serious. I've never quite understood the sense in universities teaching students about how C++ VMTs etc work. They are only relevant to one language - and possibly one implementation of one language since they aren't part of the standard - and languages change on a ~10 yearly cycle. (Which means Java should soon be making way for the Next Big Thing - BEPL maybe?...) Concepts like hashes and jump tables and generic compiler techniques are universal but how a particular language is implemented is only of marginal value IMHO. It would be like an Electronics professor spending a lecture dismantling an oscilloscope and discussing the circuit diagram - mildy interesting, but ultimately pointless! Alan G. Author of the Learn to Program website http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
