[Lazarus] Graeme would love this, or not, I think

[Reimar Grabowski]

On Wed, 16 Oct 2013 00:25:25 +0200
Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1 at aol.com> wrote:

> For writing programs you need some editor and an compiler/linker, e.g. a 
> Lazarus IDE which runs on a variety of systems.
But not as a starting point. As a starting point you should teach C. Plain and vanilla C and not some obscure language like Pascal (these are reserved for advanced programmers). Maybe a little object oriented programming in C (no C++) and GUI and event driven programming in C and multi-platform programming in C, as time permits.
Most important is not how exactly or on what systems you teach students. The most important part is that they know C after the course and that people who fail to understand pointers in all their beauty fail the course (they would never be good programmers anyway).
Next thing is Javascript. Does not need to be much JS as you write in C and compile to JS anyway but a little knowledge is needed.
Now that the students know C and can compile it to JS the Web is all theirs. Win.
If you think C is too hard for the students just give them PHP and be done with it. Win.
If you think the language is not important but the concepts are teach them pseudo code and write on paper. No need for any computers. Cheap and to the point. Epic win.
And one last but very important thing. Teach them about technical mailing lists and chat rooms and especially their differences. Teach them about on- and off-topic discussions. Teach them how to behave if you have politely been informed that your discussion actually is off-topic and they will become better coders and the Web will be a nicer place for us all.

R.