[Year 12 SofDev] choosing a language for 2008

[Mark Kelly]

Hi Steven.

I've heard that tertiary places actually prefer that secondary schools 
DON'T do a lot of programming because they'd rather do it themselves.

The problem we have in VCE SD is time constraints.  We get many kids 
coming in with zero programming experience (and sometimes zero interest) 
and we have very little time to cover programming as well as all the 
other theory that is jammed into the study design.

What you call "key" principles are a big - impossible - ask for many of 
my clients.

I'm perfectly happy if during the year my kids just get their heads 
around arrays, loops, scope, basic functions, data structures, interface 
design and simple file I/O.

As for encapsulation, abstraction etc - I'll gladly leave that for year 
13.

VB is fine for my needs :-)

Steven Bird wrote:
> On 9/18/07, Mark Kelly <kel at mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au> wrote:
>> VB6 'cos...
>>
>> 1.  I already was familiar with it and did not have time to learn a new
>> language in 2007
>> 2.  It's free for gov't schools
>> 3.  Lotsa support
>> 4.  It has all the classical programming constructs (except pointers),
>> making a good jumping-off point to other languages
>> 5.  It's RAD
>> 6.  It's relatively easy to teach (BASIC began as a teaching language)
> 
> In addition to these desiderata, it would be good if the chosen
> language supported the
> teaching of key computing principles and practices such as
> decomposition, encapsulation, procedural abstraction, code reuse, and
> testing.  Its not clear that VB is the best choice here.
> 
> Remember that your output is our input :-)
> 
> -Steven Bird (coordinator of new first year IT stream at Melbourne Uni)
> http://www.csse.unimelb.edu.au/~sb/

-- 
Mark Kelly
Manager - Information Systems
McKinnon Secondary College
McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia
Direct line / Voicemail: 8520 9085
School Phone +613 8520 9000
School Fax +613 95789253
kel AT mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au

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