Re: following up on speed

[Daniel Weinreb <address@hidden>]

Michael Sperber [Mr. Preprocessor] wrote:

>>>>>>
>>>>>>Daniel> Those of you on this list who regularly initiate
>>>>>>Daniel> undergraduates into the mysteries of Scheme: do you teach them
>>>>>>Daniel> performance analysis? In the first semester?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Not in the first semester.  IMHO, performance analysis, to be
>>>>>>meaningful at all, requires a basic understanding of the execution and
>>>>>>machine model, which usually happens later in the intro sequence of
>>>>>>courses.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The real reason for not doing it that early, however, is that
>>>>>>beginning students have a tendency to take new techniques too far:
>>>>>>
Yes, I see what you mean, and you're certainly right. It must be very 
hard to strike a proper balance.