Scheme-based web programming as a basis for a CS0 curriculum

  • Authors:

  • Timothy J. Hickey

  • Affiliations:

  • Brandeis University, Waltham, MA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that Scheme-based web programming is a worthy organizing topic for CS0 computer literacy courses. We describe an approach to introducing non-science majors to Computer Science by teaching them to write webpages using HTML and CSS and to also write applets and servlets using Scheme. The programming component of our approach is completed in about nine weeks of a thirteen week course, leaving time for a treatment of more traditional CS0 topics such as intellectual property, privacy, artificial intelligence, the limits of computability, PC architecture, Operating Systems, CMOS and logic circuits. We argue that the use of a high level scripting language (like Scheme) is essential to the success of this approach. We also argue that wide scale success in teaching web programming to non-majors could enhance the students productivity when they enter the job market, and hence this approach deserves further study.