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Computer Science 101Preparing programmers to be
architects
Michael Huth, [email protected]
Computing, Imperial College
Outline of talk
• Challenges in teaching first-year programming.
• Learning outcomes in the “slashdot” world.
• Strategies for realizing those outcomes.
• Outlook: a marriage of theory and practice.
Old and new challenges
Traditionally,
• incoming students have dramatically different skills;
• programming involves logic and artistic activity;
• real-world languages are too rich to be covered in full.
Today, software• is open and distributed;
• requires architectural design and analysis;
• interfaces across languages.
Traditional outcomes
Be able to • state requirements and specifications of programs: “The call fac(m) returns the factorial of m, given that m
>= 0.”• implement specifications: int myFac(m) { if (m==0) {return 1;} else { return m * myFac(m-1);}}• test and reason about implementations: Run myFac on “good” test values; prove that myFac
“works”.
New outcomes
• Extend old outcomes to open, distributed programs: try { Url u = Inbox.getUrl(); } catch(exception e) { print “URL not found”;}
AudioClip a = new Audioclip(); a = Url.downloadclip(u); if (this.hasLicence(a)) {Realplayer.playClip(a);} else { BigBrother.notifyViolation(this,u,a);}
• And ensure the …
Ability to formally model design
Strategies: students …
1. Week 1-5: … specify, implement, and test traditional programs in open, distributed language.
2. Week 6-10: … learn to use distributed language features; get exposure to design;
3. Week 11-15: Transfer acquired skills of first block to second one.
4. Assessment: Students evaluate the approach 1, 2, and 5 years after course completion.
An unexpected marriage
• Reality check: teach software-engineering languages early on.
• Key language features: abstract, complex, and mathematical.
• “Hot” principles of practice (e.g. B2B, P2P): realized in very abstract formalisms.
• Opportunity: marry theory and practice in a key CS course.
