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Re: [TCLUG:13004] AP Comp. Sci.



On Fri, Jan 28, 2000 at 10:20:37AM -0600, Timothy Wilson wrote:
> * I would have students use Python as the language. It's cross platform
> and pretty GUI apps can be created for Linux or Windows.

All intro classes should make you use C so you have to debug ugly
pointer mishaps.  Helps to get a feel for how nice some other languages
are later on when you use them. ;-)

> * Students would be doing *real* programming instead of the very
> artificial tasks they do now.

You could also have them pick a project from KDE or GNOME and add
a 'significant' feature.  That's more real than anything else, though
could be hard to judge what is sufficient and what isn't.

> * Students wouldn't be able to take the AP test since that assumes C++.
> This may be an issue for some students.

Perhaps just leave the language up to the student, and suggest a
'core' one that everyone should use.

In one of the classes I had at the UofMN, we had to do a programming
project using constraint-based programming techniques.  The default
language for everyone to use was TCL and Tk for the toolkit.

I asked if I could use C and GTK+ for our project.  The answer was, 
O.K.

Of course, that resulted in me needing to write a complete constraint
based programming system (if you went with TCL, that already existed),
and on top of that my program which used it.  I probably got more out 
of that class than anyone else, though I forced about 10x more work 
upon myself. 

-Shawn

--
Shawn T. Amundson                       amundson@eventloop.com	
Research and Development                http://www.eventloop.com/
EventLoop, Inc.                         http://www.snorfle.net/

"The assumption that the universe looks the same in every
 direction is clearly not true in reality." - Stephen Hawking