Message-Id: <199908262239.SAA17721@delorie.com>
From: "Dan Gold" <TedMat AT CoastNet DOT com>
To: <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: Using DJGPP in class
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 08:06:08 -0700
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

I wish my CS or InfoTech (in BC Canada) teacher would teach C or C++.  In
my opinion I think the students would grasp C easier than C++, I did and
found it much more simplistic than C++ even though some things seem easier
to type in C++ all the classes and stuff that go along with it are annoying
to learn for a beginner.  I had to use VB last year and I will probably
quit the class if I can't use DJGPP for everything this grade 12 year, it's
going to be a problem though considering the final exam covers VB...  I
think students will find VB easier but won't understand programming because
all the kids end up learning is a bunch of gui properties and events that
are only really useful in Windows and VB.  Some of the problems I would
expect from C would be all the hands flying into the air everytime there is
a typo, syntax or parse error.  You can't really expect students to
understand Rhide, but then you can't expect students to learn how to use
VB's interface.  If this is a grade 12 class, I could see a good group of
the kids catching on quickly, in grade 11 well I don't know about the
typical kid that enters your class, but about 70% of the kids in my CS
class didn't even know what the class was about =).  Probably because they
changed the name to Information Technology though?  In my opinion it
shouldn't matter if they compile from Windows or Dos, what you want to
teach is the language not the OS specifics of programming.  It's really
stupid to pay for the compilers when you have such a great learning tool
and IDE for free.  You might even want to let the students play with
Allegro, it should be easy for them to make afew function calls and get
some pretty graphics on the screen.  

That's my view, from (((--DAN GOLD--)))