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But wasn't it used for introductory CS courses? Perhaps someone can chime in about how it worked.
by olavk 8y ago
But wasn't it used for introductory CS courses? Perhaps someone can chime in about how it worked.
- braythwayt 8y agoIt was used for introductory courses at MIT, but no longer. If we look st those who took it as a course, we have to consider that they are already taking a CS course, and at MIT, no less. Once again, correlation? Or causation?
- zaptheimpaler 8y agoMy guess - In the short term, those who read it based on signaling value (the "pretenders") will be worse programmers than those who read it purely for fun ("the originals"). But in the long term, action matters more than intent. Those who kept "pretending" and kept learning (no matter the reason) will be just as good or better.
- olavk 8y agoI know correlation is not causation but come on... if a set of students follows as CS introductory course and ends up learning some CS during the span of course, it is overreaching to assume the CS course had something to do with it.
- gumby 8y agoWhen the book was written it was not unusual for new students to arrive at MIT without any computer experience. So that book was often their very first exposure to computer programming.