"Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult" <enrico.weigelt@???> wrote:

> On 26.07.2017 04:47, Christopher Clements wrote:
>
>> My high-school programming class was advertised as teaching people how to
>> program in C and do all sorts of low-level stuff. I signed up thinking
>> I might finally meet a "computer expert" that actually knew what they
>> were talking about...
>>
>> The teacher began by forcing us all to make "hello world" applications
>> IN JAVA!

From "High School" I'm guessing US based ?
I imagine there is the same problem over there as it appears there is over here in the UK - teachers have to teach this stuff, but they aren't programmers or IT specialists themselves. Similar stories abound of "inappropriate" (from our PoV) teaching methods etc, and reprobation for anyone caught "hacking" by doing anything outside of the restricted teaching syllabus.

In large part, that was the purpose behind the Pi - have something cheap enough that you can let the children loose on them, and if it breaks, well it gets replaced. No-one is going to allow them to be delving inside the expensive desktop PCs !

Personally I suspect that none of the "real" programming languages are the right choice for initial teaching of this sort. Whatever is used needs to be simple so that the language itself doesn't get in the way of the task, but powerful enough to be able to teach the principles. Teaching any specific language is a bad idea - they come and go, fashions change, but someone who understands the underlying concepts should be able to pick up a new language fairly quickly.
So, picking the first example that came into my head ... If someone is teaching "this is how we code a bubble sort in ${language}" then they are doing it wrong; someone who teaches "this is how a bubble sort works", and then "and this is how it's coded in ${language}" is getting there.

And don't get me started on those "IT" courses that teach "how to write a letter in MS Word" etc :-(

As to how to fix the shortage of skilled teachers ? I suspect that most people who can do it don't want to teach, and I suspect that many of them might not make good teachers. Absent the magic money tree that so many bystanders seem to believe exists (whatever the country or government) from which their government can pluck unlimited funds, then there won't be the sort of pay/support/limited class sizes/etc that are needed to fix it.

> At our local university, the students (lower semesters) should just
> learn simple things like sorting algorithms (wikipedia level)

Exactly - those are the building blocks that any programmer needs to know regardless of language.

> , but
> then are asked to repair the teacher's broken/incomplete C++ code,
> with lots of template magic (hmm, do we have some hall of shame, where
> I can upload his bloat ?).

That's just terrible - and he should be reported for it.

When I was at university, I tried assisting* at a course described as "computing for geographers" - and bluntly I felt embarrassed ! It was nothing more than a standard "beginners basic" on BBC micros (that dates it) with absolutely nothing in there of any use to the typical geographer - and needless to say, all the students were left with a "what ?" feeling at the end of it.

* Basically as undergrads, we were just there to assist if someone had a query - there being something like 30+ students and only one lecturer. We were told to avoid giving them the answers, but refer them to a suitable section of the book initially - partly (as one with more experience pointed out) to give us chance to go and look up the answer before thy ask again ;-)


>> Please, KEEP DOING WHAT YOU'RE DOING!
>> I have seen our "successors", and they are all brain-dead MCSEs!
>> As members of the steadily-declining demographic of "old-fashioned"
>> hackers, it falls to us to keep things in somewhat-usable states!
>
> True. OTOH, just let folks make their horrible experiences (just from
> time to time give some little notes about how easy, robust and cheap
> things can be) ... sooner or later they come back to us

My concern is that so many will be put off altogether by crap initial teaching.