Re: SICP & the Dumbing Down of American Comp Sci

Subject: Re: SICP & the Dumbing Down of American Comp Sci
From: claird@starbase.neosoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 08:00:03 -0500 (EST)
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References: <7sp42b$71a$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <37F10B65.243541B4@miqs.com> <37F12CD0.5AC1BC1A@quiotix.com> <j7vbtabgtt1.fsf@sun.cs.rice.edu>
Xref: grapevine.lcs.mit.edu comp.lang.functional:15838 comp.lang.scheme:27073 comp.lang.dylan:11026


In article <j7vbtabgtt1.fsf@sun.cs.rice.edu>,
Shriram Krishnamurthi  <shriram@cs.rice.edu> wrote:
			.
			.
			.
>You would be surprised by the venom that line of reasoning induces.
>Likewise "This is what they use at Berkeley", "This is what they use
>at Rice", and so forth.  I'm quite involved in the high school CS
>education scene, and from what I can tell, there is at the very least
>a small but very powerful cadre who use the very fact that material is 
>taught at MIT, Berkeley or Rice as proof, almost, that it can't be
>taught to ordinary high school students -- and use that to justify
>teaching C++ instead.
>
>I do think there is some small case they could make about some of that 
>material, but their overall goal doesn't seem to be to engage in
>enlightened discourse about the subject.
>
>'shriram

Perhaps rating of Usenet *is* necessary.  In
catching up on old threads, I came across this
post, and began to retch when I reached the
"justify teaching C++" part.  Like Mr. Krish-
namurthi, I also run into this atrocity far
too often.
-- 

Cameron Laird           http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
claird@NeoSoft.com      +1 281 996 8546 FAX