[Courses] [C Programming] Anyone still here?

[Julie]

Dave North wrote:
> 
> Linda:
> > a former boss who archly told me that CS students consider being taught
> > how to program as an insult
> 
> That may help explain the surprising number of CS graduates I've met who
> don't seem to have even a rudimentary grasp of programming.

When I was an undergrad the professors thought teaching "programming"
was somehow beneath them or unnecessary.  Amongst other odd jobs, I
worked as a programmer to put myself through college, the result being
that programming assignments competed with "real work" for programming
time.  I'd ask the professors why they didn't teach actual programming
skills and the answer was always that they taught "theory".  Which, I
suspect, means they didn't know how to program.

>         There are many ways to map out a program in a very general sense
> before you start coding. Two that come to mind are flow charts and
> pseudocode. The former has some conventions, but is almost what you might
> expect to see if you had to sit through another dry powerpoint
> presentation, except that it's useful. The latter is something along the
> lines of:
>         If (dave ever shuts up) {I can get on with this};
>                 else {he'll die at the keyboard};
> That sort of thing. Both can be very useful. But wait, there's more...

I found that neither pseudo-code nor flowcharting worked nearly as
well as simply DESCRIBING what the program is supposed to do.  At each
step, ask the basic journalistic questions -- who, what, when, where,
why, how.  I think both of the techniques you describe require that
you at least have an understanding of those questions before you can
proceed.  How do you know when Dave has finally shut up?  How is Dave
going to die at the keyboard?  Who is going to kill him?  When is he
going to be killed?  Designing software is a dying skill.  Most of the
programmers I work with today code first and never design.  The result
of that sort of practice is Microsoft Windows and most GNUware.
-- 
Julianne Frances Haugh             Life is either a daring adventure
jockgrrl at austin.rr.com                 or nothing at all.
					    -- Helen Keller