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

If I were them I would rather teach the kids C. Do they really need to waste their time on GUI + Database stuff in a strange language?
 
I did Delphi when I was at school, and it really wasn't bad as a teaching language. When I was in matric they changed the curriculum to use OOP to bring it onto par with the schools that used JAVA.

When I went to university, I did C++ in my first semester and JAVA and C# in the second semester and while the syntax is different to delphi, the switch wasn't that difficult. I learned to think like a programmer while doing Delphi, which is the single most important thing to learn. Don't teach a language, teach a way of thinking
 
LeonG said:
If I were them I would rather teach the kids C. Do they really need to waste their time on GUI + Database stuff in a strange language?
Click to expand...

beat me to it! the basics from C make expanding into object orientation a lot easier but.. to get people interested in development and just a sense of accomplishment i still think java stuff is better. just decide on a limited curriculum and move forward?
 
I read a lot of moaning in this thread about Java/similar being too high level so that a more procedural language might be simpler. Teaching design before implementation would do many school leavers well.
 
I think the reasoning is that Delphi is easy to learn and is appropriate for teaching the basic programming concepts. It's more about theory not teaching a specific language. Might not be the best choice but it should suffice. UNISA uses Delphi for Visual Programming and you can use Lazarus which is a free version.
 
That many higher education institutions have used Java to date is fundamentally irrelevant. It was a terrible idea to use it in the first place. A good starting language is one that is limited and preferably imposes rigid structure.

LeonG said:
If I were them I would rather teach the kids C. Do they really need to waste their time on GUI + Database stuff in a strange language?
Click to expand...
They absolutely should not start with C. Far too flexible.
 
Yes, it would be great if we could teach all the high school kids in our country C, Haskell, or whatever you believe the 'best language' to be.

At the end of the day you should take some time to look into our current state of IT schooling and a different picture will emerge.

IT is in decline across schools. Teachers are badly (or not even) trained in the basics of programming. Switching states currently using Java to Delphi after a 2 day workshop is going to be even more disastrous. There are few teachers that 'remember' pascal from 10 years back.

KZN for example DoE have been trying to train in Java for a while now. They are getting somewhere. Things should be left the way they are. KZN were told DBE did not have the budget for training, they have now shown they have. They should use this budget to train in Java in KZN, and Delphi elsewhere.

DoE in KZN are desperate for Java training, especially in the area of ODBC. They really struggle with connecting to databases and are looking into ridiculous packages for it. The issue here is really training, and 2 days of Delphi training for teachers here is going to kill IT in KZN.
 
I say teach assembly. That way we won't be arguing about platforms lol.
 
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