[Yr7-10it] Scratch, Gamemaker, VB.net, Python, PHP and MySQL - Programming for all levels

[Kevork Krozian]

Hi Bill,

 I take your point about the purist approach rather than let the market dictate what is good for me.
Having said that, it wasn't my intention to knock down python or scratch - just to show their level of pervasiveness. I know, most used doesn't mean the best.

I taught Python to my year 11s this year and PHP with MySQL to my year 12s. Some of my 11s actually managed to get Python to work with the MySQL backend as well. 
At one point in my professional life I REALLY wanted to make sure my students understood the way a half adder and a full adder worked with the truth tables, before they wrote a line of code. Yes, they had to understand how XOR gates worked or else they didn't deserve the luxury of using software to carry out arithmetic operations.

Nowadays, I tell them that they are unlikely to ever worry about how that works in their professional life. Perhaps off on a tangent, but if we are looking at what is the best programming language for children to learn in Period 1, and in Period 2 we are teaching students VET IT and what they need to go out and work in industry next year and the period after that we are teaching Cisco students how to set up a network in the "real" world through a simulated or school based problem then you will forgive my oversight if I stray into what is needed in industry as part of what they are doing. Maybe I am suffering VET fatigue.

In year 11, where students may be taking programming for the first time ever, the assessment requires that students look at IT Pathways of their chosen language and problem scenario as it exists in the market place. 

I do long for the good old days where I could teach machine language, then assembly, then Pascal, then a 4GL and insist on the correct use of data types, structures and avoidance of type mismatches and probe with a purely inquiry based approach to what is the most educationally suitable language for students.
Sadly, it is a luxury I simply don't have anymore.

I have put on my safety helmet in anticipation of the upcoming assault on my betrayal of my educational calling........   :))))

Take Care
Kevork Krozian
Edulists Creator and Administrator
www.edulists.com.au
kevork at edulists.com.au

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bill Kerr 
  To: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List 
  Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 3:52 PM
  Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] Scratch, Gamemaker, VB.net, Python,PHP and MySQL - Programming for all levels


  On 9/17/07, Kevork Krozian <Kroset at novell1.fhc.vic.edu.au> wrote:

    Check out http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm for a "league table" of language popularity.
    The order of popularity starting from the top is Java, C , (Visual) Basic, PHP ....    with python at Number 8. 
    Scratch is 2new to be listed it seems - even in the top 50.

  Kevork,
  It worries me that you present this league table in the context of a discussion about the merits of  programming languages for children, without seeing the need for an accompanying argument. 

  I point this out not just to be difficult but because I don't agree with the unstated implication that vocational factors ought to trump educational factors - surely something else needs to be said when such as table is presented? 

  ie. what weight ought to be assigned to the league table
  note their disclaimer: "Observe that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written."
  http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm

  I would have thought that Harvard University using scratch as an introduction to their Java programming course ought to count for something 
   
  -- 
  Bill Kerr
  http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
  http://www.users.on.net/~billkerr/
  skype: billkerr2006 _______________________________________________ 
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