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> making class Dog extend class Animal for the whole semester I expect this is hyperbole, but the sense that degrees have softened their content density is pal
by dleslie 4y ago
> making class Dog extend class Animal for the whole semester
I expect this is hyperbole, but the sense that degrees have softened their content density is palpable.
Even when I was attending, decades ago, the administration at my university was conjuring plans to greatly diminish the breadth and depth of content in their courses in order to graduate more students.
- TulliusCicero 4y agoThey're talking about an intro class, so doing beginner level OO stuff isn't exactly surprising.
- dleslie 4y agoMy intro courses had me building an HC11 out of logic gates. The next semester we wrote code to run on it.
- TulliusCicero 4y agoAnd what exactly does that have to to with an intro OO class? Is this a "if it's lower level it must be harder" kind of thing?
- dleslie 4y agoIt's not harder, it's more fundamental. Logic gates express forms of the basic foundations of computation, and building from there conveys their power and expressiveness. In my degree, object oriented programming came in later semesters, often paired with courses on symbolic computing, discrete mathematics, and computability and complexity.
- TulliusCicero 4y agoI still don't see what this has to do with the comment I was responding to. Who cares whether you tackle low level computing earlier or later?
- dleslie 4y agoSomeone who cares about how our existing knowledge shapes or understanding of new knowledge. Knowing how a computer works helps to understand the why and how of higher level concerns.
- TulliusCicero 4y agoSure, but that doesn't mean it has to come first in a degree. In any case, you've shifted the goal posts from: > the sense that degrees have softened their content density is palpable. Having low level content come later isn't "softened content density".
- cgriswald 4y agoIt depends on the class. Many "intro to OO programming" classes are really "intro to programming" that happen to use OO. There are no or low-level prerequisites, so the class often has to accommodate learners who have never so much as written a hello world script. (There is also pressure for higher level classes to dumb things down so the students from the lower level classes don't reach an insurmountable cliff, even if it's only insurmountable because the school's earlier classes have failed them.)
- dleslie 4y agoThat's what is wrong! It's like starting an English degree as an illiterate person and expecting the intro courses to make you literate; worse, the programs are designed with this expectation in mind.
- cgriswald 4y agoOh, I agree, there are countless problems here: -There usually isn't a prep course available, nor are there other prerequisites. -When there is a prep course, it is usually called remedial as if being failed in high school, being an older student who left high school years ago, or just never being exposed to a subject makes you, as a person, deficient. (And, of course, these legally have to be included in a person's transcript.) -Universities are under pressure to push people through quickly, so they don't want students taking extra prep courses early on. -Universities/parents/students all want to see good grades and frequently prioritize this over education (which is probably the fundamental problem of education: how to evaluate and what to do with those evaluations) -There are no ways, difficult ways, or arbitrary ways to drop out of an intro course. -A syllabus is fundamentally a contract, but you (usually) don't get to see it until you have registered, paid, and been to the course. ... etc.