Does anyone know of a university where lisp (or any other non-procedural
language) is (or was) the first programming language taught? The several
schools I've been associated with used Pascal, C(++), or Ada.
Don
If Scheme will do instead, then see Terry Kaufman's list:
http://www.schemers.com/schools.html
It provides a lot of information on schools where Scheme is used.
'shriram
Don Hoffman schrieb in Nachricht <·············@communique.com>...
>Does anyone know of a university where lisp (or any other non-procedural
>language) is (or was) the first programming language taught
The University of Hamburg (Germany) currently uses Common Lisp
in the introductory computer science course.
http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/COURSES/kogs-kvv.html#18001
This actually brings up a tangential question:
Basic was my first programming language, followed by Z-80 assembler code. I
learned that because that was what was available. I think that today LISP
can be used as a teenager's first programming language, but does anyone have
any direct or secondhand experience with Lisp and young adults? One of the
reasons LISP would be appropriate is the ease of writing fun programs
quickly, such as eliza or towers of hanoi. (hey, at least I found them fun
:-)
Students who could accomplish interesting things quickly on the computer
would enjoy higher self confidence.
Don Hoffman wrote:
> Does anyone know of a university where lisp (or any other non-procedural
> language) is (or was) the first programming language taught? The several
> schools I've been associated with used Pascal, C(++), or Ada.
> Don
Michael Tuchman <·········@yahoo.com> wrote:
+---------------
| This actually brings up a tangential question:
| I think that today LISP can be used as a teenager's first programming
| language, but does anyone have any direct or secondhand experience with
| Lisp and young adults?
+---------------
<URL:http://www.schemers.com/schools.html> lists schools which use Scheme:
245 colleges/universities worldwide - 98 of these use Scheme
in introductory courses
143 colleges/universities USA only - 50 of these use Scheme
in introductory courses
40 secondary schools worldwide
35 secondary schools USA only
The secondary schools are listed at the end, but only two give URLs which
can be explored for further details:
Greens Farms Academy, Greens Farms, CT
http://www.gfacademy.org
http://www.gfacademy.org/CurrGui/Computer.html
Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, Plantation, FL
http://www.imacs.org/
http://www.imacs.org/wizzh.html
http://www.imacs.org/wizzi.html
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock, 7L-551 ····@sgi.com http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
Silicon Graphics, Inc. Phone: 650-933-1673 [New area code!]
2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. FAX: 650-933-4392
Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA
This is helpful, but I was hoping to elicit people's stories, not only a list
of programs. Have any of you introduced LISP or scheme to your children as a
way of introducing them to programming?
Rob Warnock wrote:
> Michael Tuchman <·········@yahoo.com> wrote:
> +---------------
> | This actually brings up a tangential question:
> | I think that today LISP can be used as a teenager's first programming
> | language, but does anyone have any direct or secondhand experience with
> | Lisp and young adults?
> +---------------
>
> <URL:http://www.schemers.com/schools.html> lists schools which use Scheme:
>
> 245 colleges/universities worldwide - 98 of these use Scheme
> in introductory courses
> 143 colleges/universities USA only - 50 of these use Scheme
> in introductory courses
> 40 secondary schools worldwide
> 35 secondary schools USA only
>
> The secondary schools are listed at the end, but only two give URLs which
> can be explored for further details:
>
> Greens Farms Academy, Greens Farms, CT
> http://www.gfacademy.org
> http://www.gfacademy.org/CurrGui/Computer.html
>
> Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, Plantation, FL
> http://www.imacs.org/
> http://www.imacs.org/wizzh.html
> http://www.imacs.org/wizzi.html
>
> -Rob
>
> -----
> Rob Warnock, 7L-551 ····@sgi.com http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
> Silicon Graphics, Inc. Phone: 650-933-1673 [New area code!]
> 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. FAX: 650-933-4392
> Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA
In my understanding/opinion, Scheme is a Lisp dialect tailored for
teaching Computer Science at the university level, while Logo is a Lisp
dialect tailored for introducing symbolic manipulation at the primary
school level.
I have heard it reported that Logo is actually a mandatory part of the
general curriculum in (parts of?) the UK and elsewhere. Can anyone
confirm this? (Shame on me for reporting half-forgotten rumor. Please
take this "fact" for what its worth!)
I find it interesting that every single one of the Disney Fellows (i.e.
scientists employed by Disney to perhaps come up with something
interesting for people in general and childeren in particular) have
extensive Lisp experience. (Then again, I think I remember that their
manager was a Microsoftie!)
Anyway, I'm sure the Logo community has a lot of experiences to share
regarding teaching computers to primary students.
For a place to start looking for links, check out:
http://www.elwood.com/alu/table/related-languages.htm#logo
http://www.elwood.com/alu/table/related-languages.htm#scheme
http://www.elwood.com/alu/table/learn.htm
http://www.elwood.com/alu/table/newsgroups.htm#impl
Michael Tuchman wrote:
>
> This is helpful, but I was hoping to elicit people's stories, not only a list
> of programs. Have any of you introduced LISP or scheme to your children as a
> way of introducing them to programming?
>
> Rob Warnock wrote:
>
> > Michael Tuchman <·········@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > +---------------
> > | This actually brings up a tangential question:
> > | I think that today LISP can be used as a teenager's first programming
> > | language, but does anyone have any direct or secondhand experience with
> > | Lisp and young adults?
> > +---------------
> >
> > <URL:http://www.schemers.com/schools.html> lists schools which use Scheme:
> >
> > 245 colleges/universities worldwide - 98 of these use Scheme
> > in introductory courses
> > 143 colleges/universities USA only - 50 of these use Scheme
> > in introductory courses
> > 40 secondary schools worldwide
> > 35 secondary schools USA only
> >
> > The secondary schools are listed at the end, but only two give URLs which
> > can be explored for further details:
> >
> > Greens Farms Academy, Greens Farms, CT
> > http://www.gfacademy.org
> > http://www.gfacademy.org/CurrGui/Computer.html
> >
> > Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, Plantation, FL
> > http://www.imacs.org/
> > http://www.imacs.org/wizzh.html
> > http://www.imacs.org/wizzi.html
> >
> > -Rob
> >
> > -----
> > Rob Warnock, 7L-551 ····@sgi.com http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
> > Silicon Graphics, Inc. Phone: 650-933-1673 [New area code!]
> > 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. FAX: 650-933-4392
> > Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA
Michael Tuchman wrote:
>
> This is helpful, but I was hoping to elicit people's stories, not only a list
> of programs. Have any of you introduced LISP or scheme to your children as a
> way of introducing them to programming?
>
Here's an answer from the other end.
When I was 8-10 I was introduced to LOGO and Basic (via a Commodore 64).
I used LOGO more as a drawing tool than programming (in fact, I never
knew it was a spinoff of Lisp until now). I never went very far with
them, I was busy with other things. At 13 I was shown Pascal and
immediately leaped on it. I had no problems learning the language and
quickly forgot Basic and LOGO. Until the age of 18 I programmed in
Pascal, learning the language inside and out. I then entered the
Computer Systems Technology program at BCIT (in Vancouver, Canada).
Within a year and a half I learned Object Pascal, C, Delphi, C++, 8088
Assembler, SQL, and a few others. In addition, I learned Common Lisp.
I am continuing in Lisp and am now learning Prolog as well. Learning
Lisp was quite difficult for me, as I was quite used to structured,
procedural programming. It did, however, appeal to my rapid prototyping
style of doing things.
I ended up a good programmmer. Pascal taught me structure and to think
things out ahead of time. It taught me the step-by-step method of doing
things, which I found immensely useful in my childhood. I believe that
learning Pascal early on is a very good thing. The danger is in having
children believe that there is only one paradigm.
IMHO, the best thing to do would be teach Pascal for a semester (or
equivilent). Then continue to teach Pascal, as well as introducing them
to Lisp (or Scheme, of which I have no experience). After another term,
ask them which they perfer. Why? Which is more powerful? When is one
better then the other?
Continue to teach both, but allow the child to focus on the language
they perfer. After a while (when depends on the individual child) show
them more languages. An older child with a good grounding will love a
good visual tool (Delphi, VB).
Most important of all, give them a taste of whats out there and then let
them decide. Each one will decide differently.
In article <·················@dur.mindspring.com>, Michael Tuchman
<···@dur.mindspring.com> wrote:
>This is helpful, but I was hoping to elicit people's stories, not only a list
>of programs. Have any of you introduced LISP or scheme to your children as a
>way of introducing them to programming?
My first language was BASIC. While nice, it was a bit difficult to
express many Ideas I wnated to play with. My next language was FORTRAN.
It was great. It was much more powerful than BASIC and fast enough to be
practical. Next I learned Pascal. It sucks. I moved on to C++ and C.
They were cool, I could do anything(inclusing corrupting memory very
easily and leaking memory everywhere else.) Now I play with LISP and I
love it. I can do anything, it's fast, simple, elegant, I don't have to
deal with malloc and free-like operations, I just cons when I need to. It
has objects like in C++, but better(IMHO).
If I had it to do all over again, I would have started with Lisp, then
FORTRAN, then C, then C++, then, maybe, if I was forced to, PASCAL.
And I would have taken a decent computer science class.
B.B. --I am not a goat!
Michael Tuchman wrote in message <·················@yahoo.com>...
> ... but does anyone have
>any direct or secondhand experience with Lisp and young adults?
In 1982 and 1983 I was an Explorer Scout leader. I taught a group of about
5-7 teens how to program. The first time, I used Pascal. Just getting the
kids up to speed on the editor, the individual commands, etc. was a huge
time
sink. By the end of the (essentially semester long) course, they had
programs
up and limping along to do some simple text manipulation, usually with the
same
ugly spaghetti code thy were used to writing in Basic. Next time, I used
Franz Lisp. By the end of the (again semester long) course, they were doing
maze running programs with ASCII graphics output (remember the timeframe),
and
had learned quite a bit about program decomposition, to boot.
*** WARNING: Gratuitous flame bait follows! ***
In my mind, there are only three classes of languages that should be used in
a
first programming course:
1) Lisp (preferably the Scheme derivative)
2) Some pure functional language (e.g., ML, Haskell, Gofer, Clean, etc.)
3) Assembler (if the school wants to invest in a "bottom up" approach to
teaching
languages)
Use of an imperative language as a first language is equivalent to
educational
malpractice.
--
Frank A. Adrian
First DataBank
············@firstdatabank.com (W)
······@europa.com (H)
This message does not necessarily reflect those of my employer,
its parent company, or any of the co-subsidiaries of the parent
company.
In article <············@client3.news.psi.net>, "Frank A. Adrian"
<············@firstdatabank.com> wrote:
> *** WARNING: Gratuitous flame bait follows! ***
>
> In my mind, there are only three classes of languages that should be used in
> a
> first programming course:
>
> 1) Lisp (preferably the Scheme derivative)
> 2) Some pure functional language (e.g., ML, Haskell, Gofer, Clean, etc.)
> 3) Assembler (if the school wants to invest in a "bottom up" approach to
> teaching
> languages)
>
> Use of an imperative language as a first language is equivalent to
> educational
> malpractice.
No, it isn't. If one's programming style is terrible, the language is not
to blame, in principle. The style I see most is "this should happen, and
then this...oh wait, this first, and then...wait, forgot this
detail...etc." or, in other words, some people tend to think about what
they're going to write only when they start writing, which leads -- unless
you're a very quick thinker -- to unreadable code, bugs that can't be
found, etc.
Imperative languages allow you to program in this style, and that is the
danger of them. Purely functional languages enforce a good programming
style, but the thinking process is quite different. I think functional
programming is harder than imperative programming and therefore I agree
that a functional language should be taught before imperative ones: once
you've learned how to write a good functional program, the chances of
writing spaghetti code in an imperative language are less.
I think functional languages are very well suited for some problems, but
not for all problems. Especially when user interaction is involved, purely
functional languages have big problems to overcome, although I must say
that Clean does a great job at it. Imperative languages are perhaps better
suited for these kinds of problems, but of course less suited for others.
What I like about Lisp is that this language is a mixture of functional,
imperative and other concepts, with the stress on the functional side, but
-- be warned -- even in Lisp you can write spaghetti code quite easily.
In conclusion, I think you should know as many programming styles as you
can (imperative, functional, object-oriented, etc.) and use the best of
all of them. As far as I know, Lisp is the most complete language when it
comes to this, but still, I would suggest a typed, purely functional
language to learn good programming style. It's the only kind of language I
know that doesn't let you get away at all with not thinking before you
write. Once you've learned that, you can safely move on to an easier
language, like Lisp.
Hank
In article <·················@yahoo.com>,
Michael Tuchman <·········@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> This actually brings up a tangential question:
>
> Basic was my first programming language, followed by Z-80 assembler code. I
> learned that because that was what was available. I think that today LISP
> can be used as a teenager's first programming language, but does anyone have
> any direct or secondhand experience with Lisp and young adults?
[snip]
Yes - We had a Year-10 high-school student to look after for a week, and
she was interested in the idea of computer programming, but was basically
a complete novice. We sat her down with a Mac, Gambit Scheme, and a copy
of "Simply Scheme" by Harvey and Wright, and let her get on with it. Ia
a couple of days, she was quoting and consing like a veteran LISP-er, and
she seemed to thoroughly enjoy it!
John
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