RE: Education (Was Re: Techwriting After the Boom)

[John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com>]

Correct me if I'm wrong...

Most, if not all languages can be grouped into categories of languages. I'm
sure that multiple languages are, by design, similar to the principles
behind CAD programs. Others, similar to VB, others OOP, etc. Don't some
resemble Java? Address the languages by the design of the logic. 

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
jposada -at- book -dot- com
NY: 212-414-6656
Dayton: 732-438-3372
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream
of things that never were, and ask why not?"
-----Robert Francis Kennedy, 1968 presidential campaign

> >>Instead of them learning Lingo, and hoping that they make 
> the correlation
> >>between Lingo and "every other programming language", why 
> not directly teach
> >>them the logic behind programming languages?
> 
> Please NO! Otherwise you get a rediculous class like one I 
> took that explained
> the principles behind CAD programs. Lots of interesting 
> matrix transforms and
> vector calculations, but uselesss if you wanted to USE a CAD 
> program. Perhaps
> useful if you wanted to design a CAD program, but hardly the 
> realm of the
> majority of engineering students.
> 
> Perhaps instead, teach a more universal language. Or, it 
> should just be a main
> point of the course to underline the common factors and logic 
> using the specific
> language as the hands-on demonstration of skills. For 
> example, don't teach how
> to do a loop in Fortran. Teach loop logic, how and when to 
> use it, THEN how to
> do a loop in Fortran. It's a question of emphasis.

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