Name: Anonymous 2009-11-23 11:28
Hello, prog.
I've been thinking about something; why, when teaching programming, do people always start with a high-level language? It seems like it'd be confusing to have to learn the intricacies of the syntax of something like C, for example, while simultaneously learning the basics of programming in general. It seems like it'd be a better idea to start by introducing a (fictitious or otherwise) assembly language; something with just the basics for instructions: load, store, branch, and various mathematical and logical operators. This way, students could better understand the foundations for higher level languages like C, without getting confused and asking questions like "why do chars overflow at 256?" or "what do you mean a pointer stores an address, what's an address?". It just seems to me that it'd be best to know how exactly a computer works before trying to program it, as opposed to glossing over the issue and running into problems later.
Is this a bad idea?
I've been thinking about something; why, when teaching programming, do people always start with a high-level language? It seems like it'd be confusing to have to learn the intricacies of the syntax of something like C, for example, while simultaneously learning the basics of programming in general. It seems like it'd be a better idea to start by introducing a (fictitious or otherwise) assembly language; something with just the basics for instructions: load, store, branch, and various mathematical and logical operators. This way, students could better understand the foundations for higher level languages like C, without getting confused and asking questions like "why do chars overflow at 256?" or "what do you mean a pointer stores an address, what's an address?". It just seems to me that it'd be best to know how exactly a computer works before trying to program it, as opposed to glossing over the issue and running into problems later.
Is this a bad idea?