The discussion revolves around whether beginners should learn C before C++, particularly in the context of teaching programming to individuals with no prior experience. Participants explore various teaching methodologies, the importance of foundational programming concepts, and the role of object-oriented programming (OOP) in learning C++.
Participants do not reach a consensus on whether C should be taught before C++. There are competing views on the effectiveness of teaching methodologies and the necessity of foundational programming knowledge.
Some participants note limitations in their teaching approaches, such as the omission of pointers until later stages and the reliance on specific programming tools and data types. There is also mention of varying levels of familiarity with programming concepts among students.
That makes me think, "How, straight with C++, do we teach programming language to someone who never knows progamming language?"Amine Quentin said:
I mean like your quote before Phinds.phinds said:
program MyFirstProgram;
{ all variables here }
{ all goto Labels here }
begin
{ all the instructions here }
end.Stephanus said:
Good steps.jtbell said:
Stephanus said:
"Nothing can accomplish it" A very good phrase for pointer introduction. I remember, 20 years ago I used to teach programming language when I was in college for some cash. Just fire the pointer away.jtbell said:
As I recall from many years ago, BASICA (and GWBASIC and several other variants of BASIC) had subroutines (called with GOSUB) and functions.Stephanus said:
Stephanus said:
Nope, that isn't Pascal. For assignment, you use := .Stephanus said:
Your first MOV instruction is missing something.Stephanus said:
Sorry, you have sharp eye, Mark!Mark44 said:
var
A,B,C: Word;
begin
A:=B+C;
{ assembly equivalence
mov AX,[B]
add AX,[C]
mov [A],AX
}
end.var
A: Integer;
B: Word;
begin
B:=A; //works
asm
mov AX,A // syntax error
end;
end;Stephanus said:
What bad idea? Using GOTO or go straight to assembly after BASIC?DrStupid said:
Stephanus said:
But I find BASIC is very useful to teach someone the first programming language.DrStupid said:
Stephanus said:
Couldn't agree more. NO GOTO, GOSUB. At least not GOSUB. Switch to Pascal before GOSUB.DrStupid said:
Why Pascal? I might be wrong, but as far as I know it's pretty much a dead language. After doing a little searching, I find that it still exists, though, as Delphi, which Borland sold off in 2008 to a company named Embarcadero.Stephanus said:
Although the use of goto often leads to unreadable "spaghetti" code, and was excoriated in a paper by Edsger Dijkstra in 1968, its use is recommended in certain instances, such as for "end-of-function error handlers and for multi-level breaks from loops." -- Per Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan from wiki article in link below.DrStupid said:
Mark44 said:
Borland made a great marketing decision back when they released TurboPascal in 1983. As I recall, it sold for $49 (?), and they sold a ton of copies, and got a lot of people interested in programming. Back about '83 or so I had a version of UCSD Pascal that ran on Apple II computers. After I started learning C in '85, I was all done with Pascal.DrStupid said:
Well, it still exists, and you do not have to pay for it. Using google turned up this link in a second: http://www.gnu-pascal.de/gpc/h-index.html. Some additional info is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Pascal.Mark44 said:
Aside from Borland text editor which allow cursor to go up/down verticallyMark44 said:
, what I like about Pascal is its nested procedure.procedure Level1;
var
A: Integer;
procedure Level2;
procedure Level3;
begin
A:=10; { don't have to put A in global scope }
end;
begin
end;
begin
end;constructor Square.InitSquare;
begin
A:-10;
B:=20;
{ some codes here }
InitRectangle; { call the inherited constructor after some lines processed }
end;
), 13 years old, start doing Phyton.GOTO is important for an experienced programmer. For a beginner it's a disaster.Mark44 said:
Sorry, Mark if I trouble you. It's just out of curiousity, why C is better than Pascal. I still doing C in Metatrader, I like C, but I think Pascal is better than C.Mark44 said:
Right, neither C nor C++ allows for functions to be nested inside other functions, although some current versions of C++ such as Visual Studio 2010 and later, allow the programmer to insert lambda expressions into a function or method. Lambda expressions are anonymous functions that are defined inline.Stephanus said:Aside from Borland text editor which allow cursor to go up/down vertically
It's very convenient to access local variable globally.
Code:procedure Level1; var A: Integer; procedure Level2; procedure Level3; begin A:=10; { don't have to put A in global scope } end; begin end; begin end;
IMO, it's only mildly convenient to be able to index arrays starting at other than zero. Many languages have this capability, among them Basic and Fortran.Stephanus said:
If you write your own constructor in C++, rather than rely on a default constructor, you can have it do what you want.Stephanus said:
I'm starting to learn Python, myself. I'm finding it to be a very interesting language with lots of unusual capabilities.Stephanus said:But I know a kid, (not mine unfortunately
This is what we have to do in C. Move a to global.Mark44 said:
int a; // accessed by level3
void level1()
{
int a;
a=50;
level3();
cout << a; / will output 50 instead of 20. C can't do that.
}
void level2()
{
}
void level3()
{
a=20;
}You don't have to do this, and it's usually not recommended. It's usually better to pass variables in the parameter listStephanus said:
void level1()
{
int a;
a=50;
level3(a);
cout << a; // will output 50 instead of 20. C can't do that.
}
void level3(int b)
{
// level3 has read access to level1's a.
printf("b is %d", b); // prints "b is 50"
}Stephanus said:
Wow, I'm still using Delphi 3, 1996 version. I have a qr barcode library, can't find for the newer version. So I am stuck with it. I just realized, it's been 19 years. The longest programming language that I code.DrStupid said: