Teach non CS major introductory course using Squeak

Michael Grant mwgrant2001 at yahoo.com
Tue Jun 7 12:16:09 UTC 2005


Many years ago I took an elective in introductory
descriptive linguistics. It was very interesting
because we looked at a number very different languages
which underscored, for lack of better words, the
different avenues taken to the same
issue--communication. We did not learn a language.

If I were teaching a computer science course to
nonmajors I would undertake a survey much broader than
just programming. There are gazillion interesting
lectures to be made on the technology behind the
programming, applications, etc. and in each some
substantive about computer science can be said--in
other words a course on 'how did they do that?' If the
true focus of the course is programming for nonmajors
I would title the course as such. 

As for the language of choice in the case of the
latter tyoe of course...I don't know if I would pick
smalltalk. In my experience there is more to the world
than objects (heresy). And there probably are too many
extraneous features. Each instructor really has to
think long and hard about what he or she want to
accomplish given the student at hand. 

Got to go to work...

Regards,
Michael Grant



 



--- Ralph Boland <ralphpboland at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Many non computer science students often do an
> introductory course in computer science.
> They usually learn to program in a language such as
> Basic or Cobol.  A friend of mine was
> a phys-ed majory and made the mistake of doing an
> introductory course in Fortran
> (which he passed!).
> 
> I have always thought that for such students
> Smalltalk
> would be a MUCH better language to
> learn both in terms of learning what programming is
> all about
> and in terms of learning something that they might
> later find useful. 
> I am fairly new to the Morphic part of Squeak but it
> suggests to me that because of Morphic, 
> Squeak would be the preferred version of Smalltalk
> to
> use for such an introductory course.
> 
> Thus I wonder what other think of these opinions? 
> 
> Can anyone suggest why these are particulary
> good/bad
> ideas?
> 
> Has anyone actually used Squeak/Morphic (or even
> Smalltalk)
> in an introductory course in programming to non-CS
> majors? 
> 
> If this has been done before,  I (and others) would
> be
> interested in getting a copy of
> the class notes, slides, etc.
> Who knows,  I might get a chance to teach such a
> course in the future.
> 
> Ralph Boland  
> 
> P.S.  I currently use yahoo mail for
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> that Yahoo tacks ads to the end of mail that I send
> so if you see such an add at the end of this email
> take it to mean that YAHOO SUCKS!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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