Path: news.daimi.aau.dk!news.uni-c.dk!iesd.auc.dk!news From: Kasper Osterbye Newsgroups: comp.lang.beta Subject: Re: Teaching BETA Date: 6 Jan 1995 10:42:19 GMT Organization: Math & CS at Aalborg University Lines: 66 Message-ID: <3ej6qb$si@news.iesd.auc.dk> References: <3ecb84$l4g@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au> <3eghuh$cd1@fbi-news.informatik.uni-dortmund.de> <3egua3$8u0@clarknet.clark.net> <3eh52v$li8@fbi-news.informatik.uni-dortmund.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: white.iesd.auc.dk NNTP-Posting-User: kasper > ------- Forwarded Message > > From: EE Doberkat > Date: Thu, 5 Jan 95 15:15:05 +0100 > To: eernst@tatra.daimi.aau.dk > Subject: BETA as a first language > Cc: doberkat@ls10.informatik.uni-dortmund.de, > wr@polly.informatik.uni-dortmund.de > > > Dear Mr. Ernst, > > Wilfried Rupflin did forward your question regarding BETA as a first > language to me. Well, I am the first victim, since I am teaching the > course (and will teach it the next time, too), after having convinced the > Dept. > to adopt BETA in the long range as the first language. > > Judging things after two thirds of the course is over, it was a good > decision: the students did not have noticeable difficulties with the > syntax, and even the business with virtuals went rather smoothly. The > students complained only about the fact that no introductory book > on BETA is available [the Madsen et al. book is certainly no book for > beginners, but being the only book available, I recommended it], but > we will change that. I will, however, not teach parallel programming > with BETA, and I will not introduce the fragment system [which is in > my opinion a cruelty to the community]. Another point is that I will > not introduce any of the Mjolner tools, since I am not convinced that > they can withstand the curiosity of freshmen in terms of stability. > > Considered as a whole, I can and do recommend BETA as a language for beginners. > > Sincerely, > E.-E. Doberkat > > - --   I might add a few comments to this one. I do not teach a course on BETA, but has supervised several students who have used BETA for undergrad programming projects. 1) The fragment system is generally thought (by the students) to be quite elegant, but completely incomprehensible from the reading the BETA book. I tell what an origin and what include really means, and they will use it without major problems. 2) The graphic libraries - the athena version - has in general made a big impression on the students, as most of them have tried to do graphic programming in C, C++ or Eiffel before. 3) A few students even attempted (and succeded) in building a parser using the buildin parser generator tools. 4) I agree with Doberkat that I would not teach parallel programming, but when the runtime-system is able to support real system components I might reconsidder this. These projects have not revealed any problems with the libraries, execpt that they need better documentation. The tools such as sif and the compiler generator on the other hand will break if you cough, and should only be used as a demo of things that could be imagined. The debugger is useful, and relativ stable. One shall just tell the students that it will break 5 times a day, and when it only does so 4 times a week they are happy. Regards, Kasper