[CS-FSLUG] Intro to Programming Question

[Don Parris]

Thanks for that, Tim.  That works for me.

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 08:59, Tim Young <Tim.Young at lightsys.org> wrote:

> I recently loaded a computer full of education software from
> educational-freeware.com to send to some relatives.  In doing so, I saw a
> few very interesting pieces of software which were set up to teach basic
> programming concepts.  Their primary draw was that they gave very good
> visual feedback for the minimal amount of work.  The idea being that it did
> not take too long to to build something that you could see.
>
> The old, text-based, basic languages (which I learned how to program in)
> took a long time to make anything visual.  Never-the-less, some of my first
> programs were animated cartoons.  And most of my initial college-level
> programs that I remember were somehow visual in nature.
>
> I think one of the draws of Java is that, if you are making an applett or
> something small that runs in a browser, you can make graphics relatively
> quickly.
>
> I have heard of a number of universities using Java as their initial
> language.  Since that was not my first language, the first thought that
> always comes to mind is, "Wimps!" ;)  But Java does have most of the key
> points for a real language, and people are still paid to program in it.  So
> it is appealing because students starting out get "instant gratification"
> and it is something that looks good on the resume.
>
>    - Tim Young
>
>
> On 4/23/2012 4:16 AM, Don Parris wrote:
>
>> I saw a college course whose "Intro to Programming" class covers MS
>> Access and Java.  That just seems weird to me.  I can kind of understand
>> using Access to introduce basic database concepts, but I've never really
>> thought of Java as a starting point for programming.  I would have expected
>> BASIC, PHP or Python.  In fact, given that the class connects to web
>> programming, I was a little surprised PHP wasn't the choice.
>>
>> Any thoughts on Java as a starting point for teaching programming
>> concepts?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Don
>> --
>> D.C. Parris, FMP, ESL Certificate
>> Minister, Security/FM Coordinator, Free Software Advocate
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-- 
D.C. Parris, FMP, ESL Certificate
Minister, Security/FM Coordinator, Free Software Advocate
https://www.xing.com/profile/Don_Parris  |
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