Dropping Java and teaching Delphi in SA schools - but at what cost?

keill said:
Interesting that they don't give a reason for the change.
It might increase the pass rate, it may be a simpler language to learn, but its going to reduce the chances of kids getting a job.

Bad choice. Ask recruiters and the biggest IT employers in the country.
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I don't have a problem using Pascal for teaching programming, given that Niklaus Wirth designed Pascal specifically for teaching programming.

The fundamentals embodied in Pascal make it easy to move to other languages e.g. to move from Delphi to C# is significantly easier than moving from VB to C#.

I do, however, have a problem with the choice of Delphi, mainly 'cos it is a commercial product and costs a packet, even with educational discount.

If they are going to change the programming language to Pascal then it should be one of the free versions, assuming that they are adequate for the task.

BTW, it isn't a large market, but there is still a steady demand for Delphi programmers :)
 
Sounds to me that one way or another Embarcadero is getting kickbacks. Even if it just means to place their product into schools and thus government. From just skimming over the responses, it sounds like the only contentious issue was JPA, but why on earth would you start learners off with JPA. Simple JDBC to understand the database syntax is sufficient.

It's a pity that Delphi is being adopted as it is not really an enterprise class language - I would have preferred anything over Delphi (PHP, Ruby, Perl -- all of which have more prospect). Hardly any kid in school nowadays is capable of type with all ten fingers, so I guess learning a programming language will equally be a half-baked initiative and it would not really matter if it is Delphi or Java. (At least now I can tell me kid to tell his teachers, they should use a real language in school - a pity - everything is either Linux or Mac and now Delphi - yuck).
 
keill said:
Interesting that they don't give a reason for the change.
It might increase the pass rate, it may be a simpler language to learn, but its going to reduce the chances of kids getting a job.

Bad choice. Ask recruiters and the biggest IT employers in the country.
Click to expand...

I agree; it is shocking. It is obvious that some money changed hands.

Open source languages are the way forward here.

This should be challenged under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA); which gives implements the Section 33 of the Bill of Rights (Just Administrative Action). It essentially means that one is entitled to written reasons for any government decision.

Perhaps myBB should do at least liaise with some public interest lawyers? This requires IT knowledge that lawyers don't know about.

Does anyone know of an NGO that they could take this up with?
 
I am a software developer by trade, and I will agree that Java is not a great starter language. Back when I was in high school, we started on Turbo Pascal, and it illustrated all the necessary principles nicely without getting weighed down with exception handling etc at the very start. When I started working, I spent about 3 years using Delphi exclusively, and then moved on to .NET (VB and C#). Even today, I try my utmost to avoid Java, and work mainly in C#.

I would think that Python or even javascript is a better starting point, and then move up to a strongly typed language. I just don't get why they don't use C# or any of the .NET languages, since all of the Express Editions are completely free and more than adequate for learning. Once you have gotten the hang of C#, moving on to Java is a lot easier.
 
Stochos said:
I agree; it is shocking. It is obvious that some money changed hands.

Open source languages are the way forward here.

This should be challenged under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA); which gives implements the Section 33 of the Bill of Rights (Just Administrative Action). It essentially means that one is entitled to written reasons for any government decision.
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Did you read the Implementation Plan? The written reasons are there.

Anyway I don't see why people need to believe this is some kind of conspiracy. Look at the previous Delphi thread to see how everybody has their favourite language and will come up with all kinds of reasons as to why it's the "best".

If this was just about bribery, surely Microsoft could do a better kickback job than Embarcadero?

Most likely the person who made the decision is just like someone on the forum, had a good experience with Turbo Pascal 15 years ago, and decided that Java was **** and that the reason kids were struggling to learn programming comes down to the language. All not true of course, but since when has South Africa been able to tackle the root of their education problems.
 
porchrat said:
I think they may have started doing that again. My brother is doing some introductory programming course and I asked what language they were using and he said it isn't a real language just a made up one they use for teaching.

I think they used to use C++ though.
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In them days (long ago) we used Turbo Pascal for practical programming and a simple pseudo language for theoretical programming. I was quite tough because you had to write your program on paper, and you couldn’t test anything, you just hoped your logic was correct.
I still believe that school should not teach you to become a developer in any specific language, it should merely stimulate your interest, to learn any specific language you go on a course or use tutorials or books. Even university should be more theoretical than practical, in order to produce developers that will look wider that the limitations of a specific platform.
 
If the mods insist on creating a new thread then why isn't this thread at the very least merged with the existing 3 page thread?

mods pls merge and add comment indicating merge.

/own post ras'd
 
Java was never an appropriate teaching language, but if they want Pascal they should really just use plain Pascal.
 
noxibox said:
Java was never an appropriate teaching language, but if they want Pascal they should really just use plain Pascal.
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Precisely: I've never used them but my understanding is that the OSS variants of Pascal are more than adequate.
 
noxibox said:
Java was never an appropriate teaching language, but if they want Pascal they should really just use plain Pascal.
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How so?

I'll just quote my post from the other thread:
ginggs said:
The Raspberry Pi project is aimed at teaching young children the concepts of computer programming, and they recommend Python:
Does it have an official programming language?
By default, we’ll be supporting Python as the educational language. We also support Java, which is one of the most frequently used languages in higher education.
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keill said:
Interesting that they don't give a reason for the change.
It might increase the pass rate, it may be a simpler language to learn, but its going to reduce the chances of kids getting a job.

Bad choice. Ask recruiters and the biggest IT employers in the country.
Click to expand...

Ok, as much as I am against this move (i.e. dropping java for delphi), you do not need school programming experience at all to become a software developer. Many schools (including the one I went to) didn't even offer it... yet I studied IS after school and have been programming ever since.

Programming at school is not about getting a job in any specific language, but about programming concepts and thinking like a programmer. What language you use for that is somewhat irrelevant. I started out with vb6 (possibly the worst language on the planet for learning programming concepts), yet now have experience with c++ / c / c# / many web dev and scripting languages (php / asp.net / javascript etc) and a whole bunch more. This, having done nothing dev related at school

Is java a better language to learn then delphi... I think so. Do you need programming at school to be considered for a job? No. You don't get a chartered accountant job because you did accounting at school.
 
My concern is that when I was at high school (Matric 2009) we did Delphi and it was an absolute joke. The content could have been covered in 5 days, never mind 3 years. Delphi as it is used at schools do not teach some of the most critical programming concepts such as polymorphism, memory management, stacks, the heap, recursion and configuring damn libraries to work (Argh!) - been struggling with bad library binaries for the last few day :mad:.

School is an absolute joke these days and this is from personal experience of my matric a few years ago. Go the way of Java rather, teach kids to solve actual programming problems and not make 4 Gert's Grocery store applications as assignments.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
Many of you are missing the concept that its not preparing you for a job as an experienced developer but rather setting the foundations and planting a seed that will let you grow into one.

Heck I'm currently learning SML for the next two months, not because my job requires it or any job for that fact, but the foundations and the access to study material.
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Then get Visual Studio Express and teach C# / VB. Problem solved.
Ok, so perhaps cross platform is better... get codeblocks and teach C++
 
Okay interesting - I didn't realize that more provinces were using Delphi already. I think everyone can agree that a common language for all provinces and senior exams is a good idea; at least there seems to be some thought and reasoning behind the move. I might not agree with it all, but it doesn't look like a rash decision and the training portion will be cheaper than retraining 5 provinces from Delphi->Java.
 
Beri said:
R7000 for a flight at hotel..... where the hell are they staying..
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That is cheap.

They are constraint in terms of date and times. Just go to Kulula and see. Dropping R4k on a OR Tambo/Cape Town return flight is not excessive. And I am sure that the R7000 includes even more. E.g. airport transfers and/or parking. A per diem / other expenses for the trainer can be included etc.

Remember this is a budget. R7000 is a good figure to list on the budget. You can always come in under budget. I personally would probably have put in R10k because flights and accommodation availability is often an issue. The final cost can always come in under budget....
 
rrh said:
Interesting: the 'standard' basic course for "Delphi 4" was 5 days.

If the powers-that-be insist on 'genuine' Delphi then the current cost (via the online store) is as follows:

  • Delphi starter edition: $199.00 (32-bit only, no database connectivity)
  • Delphi professional edition: $999.00
If the educational discount is 90% then the pupils will have to pay (roughly) R199/R999
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I'd be interested to see the licensing conditions, too.

My original Delphi 3 Standard package allowed me full license over any apps I developed. Subsequent packages placed restrictions on the license so that you were restricted from releasing any app unless you bought the full, Professional license, so I never upgraded.

Eventually I moved across to Lazarus/FreePascal.
 
Roelie said:
In them days (long ago) we used Turbo Pascal for practical programming and a simple pseudo language for theoretical programming. I was quite tough because you had to write your program on paper, and you couldn’t test anything, you just hoped your logic was correct.
I still believe that school should not teach you to become a developer in any specific language, it should merely stimulate your interest, to learn any specific language you go on a course or use tutorials or books. Even university should be more theoretical than practical, in order to produce developers that will look wider that the limitations of a specific platform.
Click to expand...

Finished my undergrad in 2006 and I I can at least confirm that the varsity I went to still performed in such a manner.

So there still might be hope...
 
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