5 ms·

In my university (in Paris) we used to learn programming that way for the licence degree 1st year -> pascal only 2nd year -> c only 3d year -> java only Th

by dehef 9y ago

In my university (in Paris) we used to learn programming that way for the licence degree 1st year -> pascal only 2nd year -> c only 3d year -> java only That was a very nice learning curve for the core course of programming.

odiroot 9y ago
This really funny or strange. This is exactly how IT classes went in my high school. Uni was really scattered though: Java, C++, C, Prolog, Python.
wiz21c 9y ago
Pascal is definitely a very good language for teaching the basic of procedural/imperative programming. It has several good properties : it teaches you structured data (which helps to understand formalization), is strongly typed (which helps to reduce the uncertainty about the behavior of a program which in turn helps student to understand what they do precisely); you don't have to face pointers (which in my own experience are tough to understand); etc.
- ckok 9y ago
  But when you need them, pointers are there
  - wiz21c 9y ago
    Ah maybe I'm a bit orthodox here :-) But you're right. At least in Turbo Pascal, there were pointers and super nice in line assembly language.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  I learned pointers in my first semester of CS with ^Pascal, and glad I did because the syntax was more readable.
feiss 9y ago
yeah in Spain it was pretty much the same (almost 20 years ago), touching others just a bit (haskel, prolog, etc.)
Just1689 9y ago
A friend taught me QBasic and then another friend taught me Turbo Pascal. Later, in high school, I learned Delphi and we did Java at Monash University.
ksec 9y ago
For absolute beginners, I still think Pascal, or Turbo Pascal is best to start. It has a syntax that doesn't scare people away, and very readable. Deploying is also 1 trillion times easier then what ever we have today, ( C , Python , Ruby , Node.js ... ) I would have picked Ruby if it could compiled into a single executable file, and if the Dev environment actually work on Windows. P.S: It does work on Windows, but not as simple and easy as it should be. Compared to every other alternative on the market.
- gadders 9y ago
  At my university, we skipped Pascal and went straight to Modula 2. This was in the late 80's - early 90's.
- thethirdone 9y ago
  > Deploying is also 1 trillion times easier then what ever we have today, ( C , Python , Ruby , Node.js ... ) What makes it easier? Distributing an executable from C seems easy. And using package managers from others also seems easy.
  - boznz 9y ago
    Press F9 and you get a self contained exe which was not dependent on any libraries in about a second.. I think that was what the poster was getting at.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  Absolute beginners don’t deploy though, they write lessons down and then hit run. “Scripting” langs work great for this.
pluma 9y ago
I was enrolled at a university that had you progress like this: 1. Imperative programming with Pascal 2. Object-oriented programming with Java 3. Functional and logic programming with Prolog and Scheme 4. Advanced functional programming with ML All the software engineering & project management courses basically assumed Java-brand OOP and related practices, though. Before that I was enrolled at a different university that did three things at the same time in no obvious order: A. HTML/CSS/JavaScript and PHP for web development (yes, like in the 2000 era) B. Java for linguistics programming and software engineering (but the professor wouldn't shut up about how much he likes Oberon-2) C. C++ for interactive graphics programming (and maybe other things to) Basically all the advanced "computer sciencey" stuff was in C++, all the more "software engineeringy" stuff was in Java and everybody pretended web development wasn't really a thing.

by dehef 9y ago

odiroot 9y ago

This really funny or strange. This is exactly how IT classes went in my high school. Uni was really scattered though: Java, C++, C, Prolog, Python.

wiz21c 9y ago

Pascal is definitely a very good language for teaching the basic of procedural/imperative programming. It has several good properties : it teaches you structured data (which helps to understand formalization), is strongly typed (which helps to reduce the uncertainty about the behavior of a program which in turn helps student to understand what they do precisely); you don't have to face pointers (which in my own experience are tough to understand); etc.

ckok 9y ago
But when you need them, pointers are there
- wiz21c 9y ago
  Ah maybe I'm a bit orthodox here :-) But you're right. At least in Turbo Pascal, there were pointers and super nice in line assembly language.
mixmastamyk 9y ago
I learned pointers in my first semester of CS with ^Pascal, and glad I did because the syntax was more readable.

feiss 9y ago

yeah in Spain it was pretty much the same (almost 20 years ago), touching others just a bit (haskel, prolog, etc.)

Just1689 9y ago

A friend taught me QBasic and then another friend taught me Turbo Pascal. Later, in high school, I learned Delphi and we did Java at Monash University.

ksec 9y ago

For absolute beginners, I still think Pascal, or Turbo Pascal is best to start. It has a syntax that doesn't scare people away, and very readable. Deploying is also 1 trillion times easier then what ever we have today, ( C , Python , Ruby , Node.js ... ) I would have picked Ruby if it could compiled into a single executable file, and if the Dev environment actually work on Windows. P.S: It does work on Windows, but not as simple and easy as it should be. Compared to every other alternative on the market.

gadders 9y ago
At my university, we skipped Pascal and went straight to Modula 2. This was in the late 80's - early 90's.
thethirdone 9y ago
> Deploying is also 1 trillion times easier then what ever we have today, ( C , Python , Ruby , Node.js ... ) What makes it easier? Distributing an executable from C seems easy. And using package managers from others also seems easy.
- boznz 9y ago
  Press F9 and you get a self contained exe which was not dependent on any libraries in about a second.. I think that was what the poster was getting at.
mixmastamyk 9y ago
Absolute beginners don’t deploy though, they write lessons down and then hit run. “Scripting” langs work great for this.

pluma 9y ago

I was enrolled at a university that had you progress like this: 1. Imperative programming with Pascal 2. Object-oriented programming with Java 3. Functional and logic programming with Prolog and Scheme 4. Advanced functional programming with ML All the software engineering & project management courses basically assumed Java-brand OOP and related practices, though. Before that I was enrolled at a different university that did three things at the same time in no obvious order: A. HTML/CSS/JavaScript and PHP for web development (yes, like in the 2000 era) B. Java for linguistics programming and software engineering (but the professor wouldn't shut up about how much he likes Oberon-2) C. C++ for interactive graphics programming (and maybe other things to) Basically all the advanced "computer sciencey" stuff was in C++, all the more "software engineeringy" stuff was in Java and everybody pretended web development wasn't really a thing.