Assembly vs. Everything Else (was: SemiOT: Mourning for ClassicComputing)

On Sat, 18 Aug 2001, Jeffrey S. Sharp wrote: In the classes that I teach, I have abandoned tradition! Heresy! I used to get students copying each other's work for the "Hello, world" assignment. So, ... Now I make them write a program to put their name on the screen. I still get some people turning in other people's work!, but not as many. The FIRST assignment (and an important argument for why I would prefer to have students START (at least a week) with BASIC), is NOT to deal with important algorithms and data structures. It is entirely to deal with the concept of "what is a program", and how to get the tools (editor, source file, compiler, etc.) to work. The SECOND assignment can then get into something that is more of a challenge. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com