[plug] [OT] murdoch IT dept

[Shayne O'Neill]

Talk to the guild if the course is sucking too much.

Still, wtf is going on with a java course you dont do OO in?

Also. when I did my it qualifications (10 years ago!) it was pascal
fortran cobol baby. Also you could do that bizare OO stuff with smalltalk.

How thingsa changed.

------------------------------------
"Must not Sleep! Must warn others!"
-Aesop.
Shayne O'Neill. Indymedia. Fun.
http://www.perthimc.asn.au

On Sun, 21 Sep 2003, Arkem (Paul) wrote:

> I'm currently going through Murdoch's IT Department and I'm doing ok but
> many people are having massive problems.
>
> As it stands typical Murdoch students go through the following:
> (As an aside I'm very atypical as I'm doing a second major [Telecoms
> Management] which messes this around a little)
>
> Semester 1: Java
> Semester 2: Java (now explaining OO), C and a tiny bit of Intel 8086 ASM
> From Second year on it's mostly up to the students though
> Semester 3-6: C++ (required)
>                     Lots More Java (all optional)
>                     PHP/Perl/JavaScript (optional, all taught in one unit)
>                     More C (optional, some unix work, systems programming)
>                     etc, etc, etc...
>
> Many people by the stage I'm at (semester 4) have trouble grasping
> fundamental OO principals such as the difference between a class
> and an object. Just about everyone has forgotten most of the C they learnt
> and all the assembly and all the memory theory like stack, heap and
> what happens when a function is called. It's rather confusing learning
> about a stack as a data structure when you have dim recolections
> of The Stack =)
>
> Quite a few of the staff know the problem and are trying to find a
> solution. Dr Nicola Ritter who teaches C++ and Data Structures
> is a big advocate for C++ for 1st year students. Though nobody
> has found a complete solution yet.
>
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 03:48 pm, Ben New wrote:
> > ><aside>
> > >Murdoch may start with Java now, but I don't think they should (I
> > >started with Pascal there)... I've seen way too many confused CS
> > >students trying to understand procedural programming stuck into an OO
> > >language. I would suggest teaching C for the basics and technical
> > >concepts (a stack to a java programmer is just a package you import)
> > >then switching to Java later.
> > ></aside>
> >
> > Ohhhhh.... don't get me started!!!
> >
> > I've been helping some CS students, first years, and they are doing C
> > and Java in the same semester...  Not only that but the C course has
> > actually started doing assembly now as well, I think they are doing that
> > from now (week 8) until the end.  They have no idea wtf is going on!
> >
> > That's what you get when you put IT in between Business and Law instead
> > of between Maths and Science!
>
> lol it's worse than that, after a recent refactoring Computer Science ended
> up as part of the Arts division. I guess it almost makes some sort of sense
>
> Paul
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