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I agree that languages close to hardware are the wrong starting point to introduce a newbie to programming. And I see a change happening already—e.g. Stanford c
by akhayam 3y ago
I agree that languages close to hardware are the wrong starting point to introduce a newbie to programming. And I see a change happening already—e.g. Stanford changing the introductory programming course to JavaScript in 2017: https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/28/cs-department-updates-introductory-courses/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/28/cs-department-updates-i....
I suspect that other top schools will follow suite whenever someone has the will and courage to design a new course in a higher level language. It’s a lot of work and the incentives for university professors aren’t aligned with making such a big investment into something that isn’t glamorous. In other words, don’t hold your breath.
- john_the_writer 3y agoThe question I have here.. What would learning JS at Uni look like? What would it cover that I can't grab off youtube. JS is a great high level language, but I'd wonder how you could talk about memory usage, and heap/stack usage, and recursion. I think the foundation would be missing.
- akhayam 3y agoI am not advocating to remove the foundations. My stance is that it shouldn’t be the first exposure to programming. I am all for covering foundations in later courses.