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Posts: 3,319 | Thanked: 5,610 times | Joined on Aug 2008 @ Finland
#35
Originally Posted by zwer View Post
Anyway, not to get too off-topic, when I mentioned punched cards, I didn't mean that those should be taught at school, but they certainly give you a lot of perspective when it comes to programming. In today's day and age programmers rarely have the opportunity to experience what all their code boils down to, and software turned into a mysterious vapor, it's a good thing to see that your program actually does something except printing shiny pixels on a screen. You know, something physical, something you can touch and feel with all your senses. Such an experience awes any passionate programmer.
The problem with using metalanguages for education is a two edged sword. You listed the advantage, which is very real - but the flip side is that your students will not be able to produce anything tangible, and, worse yet, they will not have any tech under their belt an employer can relate to.

As for old languages and tech, I must admit I’m on the conservative side and I think they should be taught. Obviously nowhere near to the extent of ’present day’ tech, but students must have the scope to see why things evolved the way did, what the mistakes were, and what the specific advantages of particular approaches are. And the reason why this should be done within the schooling system is *exactly* because this is something that they will not be able to do in ’real life’. Teaching a single master-language (whether that be C++ or Java or something else) is IMHO exactly what is creating the dinosaurs, you are teaching people to be good in one tech and (professionally) live and die with it.
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