TITLE: Back to the Basics. Accelerated
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: April 07, 2006 11:33 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
The
<A HREF="http://www.sigcse.org/">
   SIGCSE</A>
mailing list has been alive this week with a thread that
started with pseudocode, moved to flowcharts, and eventually
saddened a lot of readers.  At the center of the thread is
the age-old tension among CS educators that conflates debates
between bottom-up and top-down, low-level and high-level,
machine versus abstraction, and "the fundamentals" with
"the latest trends".  I don't mean to rehash the whole
thread here, but I do want to share my favorite line in
the discussion.

Suffice to say:  Someone announced an interest in introducing
programming via a few weeks of working in pseudocode, which
would allow students to focus on algorithms without the
distraction of compilers.  He asked for advice on tools
and resources.  A group of folks reported having had success
with a similar idea, only using flowchart tools.  Others
reported the advantages of lightweight assembly-language
style simulators.  The discussion became a lovefest for
the lowest-level details in CS1.

My friend and colleague
<A HREF="http://csis.pace.edu/~bergin/">
   Joe Bergin</A>,
occasionally quoted here, saw where this was going.  He
eventually sent an impassioned and respectful message to
the SIGCSE list, imploring folks to look forward and not
backwards.  In a message sent to a few of us who are
preparing for next week's
<A HREF="http://www.hillside.net/chiliplop/2006/">
   ChiliPLoP 2006</A>
conference, he wrote what became the closing salvo in
his response.

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
The pseudocode thread on the SIGCSE list is incredibly
depressing.  ...  Why not plugboards early?  Why not
electromechanical relays early?  Why not abacus early?
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

An "abacus-early" curriculum.  Now, <EM>there</EM>'s the
fundamentals of computing!  Who needs "objects first",
"objects early", "procedures early", "structured programming",
...?  Assignment statements and <TT>for</TT>-loops are
johnny-come-latelys to the game.  Code?  Pshaw.  Let's
get back to the real basics.

Joe, you are my hero.

(Of course, I am being facetious.  We all know that
computing reached its zenith when C sprang forth as whole
cloth from Bell Labs.)

Am I too young to be an old fogey tired of the same old
discussions?  Am I too young to be a guy who likes to
learn new things and help students do the same?

I can say that I was happy to see that Joe's message
pulled a couple of folks out of the shadows to say
what really matters: that we need to share with students
the awesome beauty and power of computing, to help them
master this new way of thinking that is changing the
world as we live.  All the rest is details.
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