Squeak in college education

Aaron Lanterman lanterma at ece.gatech.edu
Tue Feb 17 21:43:55 UTC 2004


On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Blanchard, Todd wrote:

> To which I replied something along the lines of "C++?!?  Ick! - howabout we
> use something a little more forgiving for an intro course like - oh I don't
> know - maybe squeak?"

As cool as Squeak is, I wouldn't want to use it for an intro course.
I've heard the arguments of the "objects-first" movement, but I think
students need to be "ready" to receive and appreciate objects. Within any
object, there are little bits of procedural thinking going on, so it makes
sense to get some of that first. Also, Squeak's programming environment
can be extraordinarily intimidating at first, compared with, say the JES
tool that Mark Guzdial's team came up with for Python. Of course the
Smalltalk/Squeak programming environment is orders of magnitude more
powerful than anything else I've ever seen, but absorbing all that power
at once can be scary.

> 	I agree in principle re C++. In the past we've even tried Scheme.
> 	Trouble is, students have to use C++ in _everything_ that follows...
>
> 	particularly the immediately following course, 2421. Thus, we really
>
> 	must use C++. No choice. Sorry.
>
> And at least a chunk of this is driven by the EE dept wanting the students
> to get C++ for writing low level hardware stuff.

> Its a vicious circle.

You might be able to talk them into using part Java and part C++, where
you start with Java and then gradually get lower and lower level. Of
course Java itself is a freaking nightmare for a first language - "public
static void main," anyone?

- Aaron

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