[Gllug] open source centric ICT in Schools from Sept 2012

[Philip Hands]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:40:56 +0000, Rob Crowther <robertc at boogdesign.com> wrote:
> On 18/01/2012 11:17, Tethys wrote:
> >
> > Christopher Currie writes:
> >
> >> For general programming skills (as opposed to games) wouldn't a better
> >> grounding in modern or classical languages (taught at least partly in
> >> the old fashioned way, with formal grammar and syntax, and some prose
> >> composition) be more effective?
> >
> > No.
> >
> I was told in my first week at University that language aptitude 
> correlated at least as strongly as mathematical aptitude with later 
> ability to write programs.  This was in the "don't worry if you've never 
> done any programming before" part of the opening CS101 lecture.  I'm 
> fairly sure one of the reasons I got a better than average offer from 
> this University was because I'd done an English Lit A-level.

That could easily be for reasons that would relate to Dykstra's attitude
to BASIC -- I'm sure that given a choice between pretty much any arts
student, and a geek who'd done a few years of BASIC in his spare time,
Dykstra would have chosen to teach the arts student.

Also, it must be nicer to teach people who know how to wash ;-)

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
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