5 ms·

I'd imagine given another language (e.g. Python), they'd learn a lot faster and be a lot more prodictive throughout the course.

zozbot234 6y ago
Python is way too ad-hoc to be a good teaching language in a professional context. It's designed to teach kids and first-time coders, as an alternative to BASIC.
- dagmx 6y ago
  I think that wholly depends on the context. Python is a great teaching language IMHO if the goal is to teach how to get things done. It's not a good language if you're teaching how things do work under the hood. To me it's the difference between programming and computer science.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
dagmx 6y ago
Possibly but Python is a completely different level of programming too. I do wonder if Rust is easier or harder than other comparable languages like C / C++ when the person has no prior knowledge of programming. I would say just the ease of having a hello world and the ease of the Rust book would make it easier to get to grips with. No dealing with complex build systems and compiler flags at the start
- zozbot234 6y ago
  The Rust book as currently written assumes that the user has some programming experience. That's mainly b/c there hasn't been much of any experimentation in teaching Rust as a first time programming language. Although obviously it's been done for C++ and even C, so it ought to be quite doable, if perhaps with a bit of a "learn programming the hard way" style.
  - dagmx 6y ago
    That's true. It doesn't introduce base concepts for example.
- ModernMech 6y ago
  > I do wonder if Rust is easier or harder than other comparable languages like C / C++ when the person has no prior knowledge of programming. I can answer this because I previously taught the course in C and C++. The students supposedly have some knowledge of Java but they seem to always have forgotten all of it when they reach me. Students learning C use all of the footguns you can imagine. The biggest problem for them is writing code that segfaults, and their code always segfaults. It's not so much a problem that it does, but that there is 0 useful feedback as to why the segfault occurred and where they could potentially look to fix the problem. The bigger issue for them is memory management. They frequently walk into the use after free, double free, and memory leak walls. They also have significant trouble with N-dimensional pointer arrays. They have trouble allocating the appropriate memory for these arrays and can't seem to visualize the layout of memory. C++ is a little better because they have experience with Java, but they are frequently mystified by constructors/destructors and how to manage memory manually (they only have experience with a GC), and template programming is always an issue. But they still run into the same issue with segfaults. Rust makes all of this go away. They don't have to manage their memory manually, and they don't encounter a single segfault. Ever. We are able to just sweep all of those problems under the rug, and move on to actual content. With C/C++ we focused a lot on the language with the hope we could use it as a tool eventually, with Rust we use the language as a tool and focus on the wider world of applications for which that tool is useful.
  - cultyyy123 6y ago
    NOT TRUE! You are doing it wrong If you are manually managing memory on Modern C++. C++ has RAII built in even before Rust came to the scene. I've never had a situation where I had to manage memory manually during my professional career in C++ If your students face seg faults, please show them Valgrind. Valgrind is better than GDB when it comes to seg faults. It can show you where exactly error occurred. Edit: Oh I got downvoted for saying truth. I now know what they are really up to.
    - dagmx 6y ago
      I believe that statement from the person you're replying to was in comparison to the issues with teaching C not C++
ModernMech 6y ago
It's a systems course, so we use a language targeted at writing systems. It used to be C/C++, now it's Rust.
- johnnycerberus 6y ago
  That's nice, at UPB in Bucharest we use for the OS course C and for the distributed systems one Go/Java, though the DS one involves heavy theory/math and less coding but implementations in Go/Java are a big bonus. I don't know where do you teach, but our students would probably be confused by Rust and their time will be spent elsewhere instead of being focused on the actual course content.

zozbot234 6y ago

Python is way too ad-hoc to be a good teaching language in a professional context. It's designed to teach kids and first-time coders, as an alternative to BASIC.

dagmx 6y ago
I think that wholly depends on the context. Python is a great teaching language IMHO if the goal is to teach how to get things done. It's not a good language if you're teaching how things do work under the hood. To me it's the difference between programming and computer science.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

dagmx 6y ago

Possibly but Python is a completely different level of programming too. I do wonder if Rust is easier or harder than other comparable languages like C / C++ when the person has no prior knowledge of programming. I would say just the ease of having a hello world and the ease of the Rust book would make it easier to get to grips with. No dealing with complex build systems and compiler flags at the start

zozbot234 6y ago
The Rust book as currently written assumes that the user has some programming experience. That's mainly b/c there hasn't been much of any experimentation in teaching Rust as a first time programming language. Although obviously it's been done for C++ and even C, so it ought to be quite doable, if perhaps with a bit of a "learn programming the hard way" style.
- dagmx 6y ago
  That's true. It doesn't introduce base concepts for example.
ModernMech 6y ago
> I do wonder if Rust is easier or harder than other comparable languages like C / C++ when the person has no prior knowledge of programming. I can answer this because I previously taught the course in C and C++. The students supposedly have some knowledge of Java but they seem to always have forgotten all of it when they reach me. Students learning C use all of the footguns you can imagine. The biggest problem for them is writing code that segfaults, and their code always segfaults. It's not so much a problem that it does, but that there is 0 useful feedback as to why the segfault occurred and where they could potentially look to fix the problem. The bigger issue for them is memory management. They frequently walk into the use after free, double free, and memory leak walls. They also have significant trouble with N-dimensional pointer arrays. They have trouble allocating the appropriate memory for these arrays and can't seem to visualize the layout of memory. C++ is a little better because they have experience with Java, but they are frequently mystified by constructors/destructors and how to manage memory manually (they only have experience with a GC), and template programming is always an issue. But they still run into the same issue with segfaults. Rust makes all of this go away. They don't have to manage their memory manually, and they don't encounter a single segfault. Ever. We are able to just sweep all of those problems under the rug, and move on to actual content. With C/C++ we focused a lot on the language with the hope we could use it as a tool eventually, with Rust we use the language as a tool and focus on the wider world of applications for which that tool is useful.
- cultyyy123 6y ago
  NOT TRUE! You are doing it wrong If you are manually managing memory on Modern C++. C++ has RAII built in even before Rust came to the scene. I've never had a situation where I had to manage memory manually during my professional career in C++ If your students face seg faults, please show them Valgrind. Valgrind is better than GDB when it comes to seg faults. It can show you where exactly error occurred. Edit: Oh I got downvoted for saying truth. I now know what they are really up to.
  - dagmx 6y ago
    I believe that statement from the person you're replying to was in comparison to the issues with teaching C not C++

ModernMech 6y ago

It's a systems course, so we use a language targeted at writing systems. It used to be C/C++, now it's Rust.

johnnycerberus 6y ago
That's nice, at UPB in Bucharest we use for the OS course C and for the distributed systems one Go/Java, though the DS one involves heavy theory/math and less coding but implementations in Go/Java are a big bonus. I don't know where do you teach, but our students would probably be confused by Rust and their time will be spent elsewhere instead of being focused on the actual course content.