6 ms·

An introductory course in computer programming (1965)

110 points by federicoponzi 10y ago

suyash 10y ago
This is fantastic. So much has not changed in the programming curriculum at universities in 50 years - just the language and few more complementary classes.
gumby 10y ago
I liked this part: "the student is treated in no way differently from the faculty or staff in the nature of...contact with the processing capacity of the computer." Says a lot about the hierarchy of the period (as does the use of "his contact" in the original...) This is ironic to me because I have seen that the other way from usual: in 1984 I was a TA at Stanford for a class whose students were grad students and faculty in the philosophy department (I was part of a team at PARC developing a new programming language relevant to the work at the newly formed CSLI). Most of them had never touched a computer before. Some of the faculty didn't enjoy being "students" again, and many didn't do the homework. And a couple of years before I was taking a humanities class at MIT. A special section of 6.001 (introduction to programming, taught in Scheme) was being offered to the faculty. He asked me for help with the homework. This was at a time when I think the majority of MIT undergraduates arrived without having used a computer more powerful than a pocket calculator.
- untilHellbanned 10y ago
  Unnecessary namedropping
default-kramer 10y ago
I find this funny: Flow charts are not a programming language, largely because they are two dimensional and pictorial, and there is no convenient way of reading them into the computer. This situation will almost certainly change, since graphical input devices using large cathode ray tubes are now being developed for computers; but for the present, flow charts are limited to expressing algorithms.
- suyash 10y ago
  Developers need to start taking Flowcharts, UML more seriously - I think most people don't see it's full power.
  - nerdponx 10y ago
    I commented on this recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13822441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13822441 It seems the only "visual programming" environments are either domain-specific, esoteric, intended for children, or some combination of the above. And I think that's a damn shame. I'm a data scientist, not a computer scientist: give me a suitable abstraction layer on top of code, and I will use it. I think flowchart-based programming is one way, maybe the only way, to make this possible.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - flor1s 10y ago
      I used to be in the camp thinking that we should be using way more visual programming tools. I even worked at a startup company building a "software factory" (essentially a tool for generating a DB and an accompanying front-end which can load a metamodel for that DB and builds an interface for it). Nowadays I do think that visual programming is better for domain-specific purposes. I also think that for many purposes code is a suitable abstraction layer on top of machine instructions. Meanwhile abstraction means removing nonessential detail, however for a general purpose programming language one cannot predict which features are essential in a specific application. That's why visual programming is working in domain-specific areas, because in that case you can often decide which details are nonessential.
    - patrickg_zill 10y ago
      There is the Russian DRAKON programming language, might be worth having a look at it.
    - Analemma_ 10y ago
palavsen 10y ago
It's so strange to see that not much have been changed in the computer programming course in college since 1965
beezle 10y ago
One had to wait a few more years to have rudimentary i/o standardized in Algol.

110 points by federicoponzi 10y ago

This is fantastic. So much has not changed in the programming curriculum at universities in 50 years - just the language and few more complementary classes.

gumby 10y ago

I liked this part: "the student is treated in no way differently from the faculty or staff in the nature of...contact with the processing capacity of the computer." Says a lot about the hierarchy of the period (as does the use of "his contact" in the original...) This is ironic to me because I have seen that the other way from usual: in 1984 I was a TA at Stanford for a class whose students were grad students and faculty in the philosophy department (I was part of a team at PARC developing a new programming language relevant to the work at the newly formed CSLI). Most of them had never touched a computer before. Some of the faculty didn't enjoy being "students" again, and many didn't do the homework. And a couple of years before I was taking a humanities class at MIT. A special section of 6.001 (introduction to programming, taught in Scheme) was being offered to the faculty. He asked me for help with the homework. This was at a time when I think the majority of MIT undergraduates arrived without having used a computer more powerful than a pocket calculator.

untilHellbanned 10y ago
Unnecessary namedropping

default-kramer 10y ago

I find this funny: Flow charts are not a programming language, largely because they are two dimensional and pictorial, and there is no convenient way of reading them into the computer. This situation will almost certainly change, since graphical input devices using large cathode ray tubes are now being developed for computers; but for the present, flow charts are limited to expressing algorithms.

suyash 10y ago
Developers need to start taking Flowcharts, UML more seriously - I think most people don't see it's full power.
- nerdponx 10y ago
  I commented on this recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13822441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13822441 It seems the only "visual programming" environments are either domain-specific, esoteric, intended for children, or some combination of the above. And I think that's a damn shame. I'm a data scientist, not a computer scientist: give me a suitable abstraction layer on top of code, and I will use it. I think flowchart-based programming is one way, maybe the only way, to make this possible.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - flor1s 10y ago
    I used to be in the camp thinking that we should be using way more visual programming tools. I even worked at a startup company building a "software factory" (essentially a tool for generating a DB and an accompanying front-end which can load a metamodel for that DB and builds an interface for it). Nowadays I do think that visual programming is better for domain-specific purposes. I also think that for many purposes code is a suitable abstraction layer on top of machine instructions. Meanwhile abstraction means removing nonessential detail, however for a general purpose programming language one cannot predict which features are essential in a specific application. That's why visual programming is working in domain-specific areas, because in that case you can often decide which details are nonessential.
  - patrickg_zill 10y ago
    There is the Russian DRAKON programming language, might be worth having a look at it.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago

palavsen 10y ago

It's so strange to see that not much have been changed in the computer programming course in college since 1965

beezle 10y ago

One had to wait a few more years to have rudimentary i/o standardized in Algol.