Re: Required common programming language

["Lanzafame, Frank" <flanzafame@monroecc.edu>]

> > I'm not sure I agree here.  I had a student last year in a problem solving
> > course using Quick Basic.  This student had (I'm convinced) been brain damaged
> > by excessive exposure to the GOTO.  He wrote one of the most convoluted 
complex
> > pieces of code I ever saw to do a rather simple and straight forward
> > programming assignments.  Not only wasn't it reusable or extensible, it was
> > unreadable!
>
> Well Frank, I notice that you didn't say that it didn't work. From the
> student's point of view that might be less important than pleasing the
> teacher, but from the learner's point of view, if the code compiled and
> ran, he might well have achieved his goal anyway.

Leigh

Not to beat this to death (here writer fully intends to do so), the point was 
that the assignment was simple.  By making the problem much more difficult, the 
student is then unable to handle a much more complicated problem.  

Structured programming encourages good factoring of the problem into concise 
pieces which are readable, understandable AND testable.  Sometime proper 
factoring is the only approach to handling a complex problem.  Spaghetti logic 
makes this very difficult.

Ciao,


   /\~~~/\
  >       >    Frank M. Lanzafame         Department of Chemistry
>  ^   ^  >   Monroe Community College   1000 East Henrietta Rd.
>  (_O_)  >   Rochester, NY   14623      716-292-2396
  >   U   >    Internet:                  flanzafame@monroecc.edu