High-level problems in teaching undergraduate programming languages

Authors:
William R. Cook
Affiliations:
University of Texas at Austin
Venue:
ACM SIGPLAN Notices
Year:
2008

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Abstract

This paper discusses several problems in teaching programming languages. A language tends to indoctrinate its users and desensitize us to its problems and limitations. In addition, many language issues don't arise until programs reach a certain scale, which can be difficult to do in a one-semester course. No solution is proposed; instead the focus is to better understand the difficulty of designing an effective curriculum. One way to cut through the accidental combination of surface features in programming languages is to focus on semantics and programs themselves as object of study.