MALE SHOEGAZE posted:

I don't see why you cant teach a low level and high level language simultaneously.

Suspicious Dish posted:

Because understanding programming concepts is difficult enough without throwing two entirely different mental models at them.

FamDav posted:

python: people had a lot of issues with variable declarations and scope

ratbert90 posted:

C is simple, and contains pretty much the fundamentals of almost every single programming language out there.
I have seen a lot of poo poo code because of a fundamental misunderstanding of how memory is handled.
I have seen CS graduates that didn't know what a pointer was.
I have seen CS graduates that didn't know what a function was on a memory level.

Subjunctive posted:

If you think C is simple then your mental model of modern processors is probably too naive.

Suspicious Dish posted:

It has to be in order to remain sane. The minute you realize how badly your processor cheats to beat slow memory fetches is the day you quit smoking.

QuarkJets posted:

Variable declaration and scope are way simpler in Python than in any of those other languages, so this is just

Jewel posted:

Don't teach them globals until they know how to properly use them (which is almost never) problem solved.

QuarkJets posted:

Variable declaration and scope are way simpler more loving broken in Python than in any of those other languages, so this is just

seiken posted:

Variable declaration and scope are way more loving broken in Python than in any of those other languages, so this is just

Thermopyle posted:

This is weird and not the average experience. However, it's not really possible to always know the contents of all objects all the time.

HardDisk posted:

I was formally taught Pascal, C and Java in that order, and I think I came out OK.

MALE SHOEGAZE posted:

Ruby Mine has tons of nice features that I will never learn anything about because using it is incredibly painful. I'm sure it's great once you know what everything does it absolutely chokes on my companies 10,000+ line ruby files so I can't really use it.

Someone I would be fired for naming posted:

We don't need source control anymore now that we've switched to Python.

GrumpyDoctor posted:

Common Lisp can do this

As for a contribution:

Java code:

		// parameters for intermediate calculations
		private double roofQConduct;		// Units: W/m2
		private double roofNetRadiation;	// Units: W/m2
		private double roofQET;				// Units: W/m2

Why does every scientist in my department do this? Why? Who the hell teaches Java without teaching local variables?

qntm posted:

C is not simple.

Hammerite posted:

The worst thing about this code is that it uses a double for something in a particular unit and that the user has to be reminded with a little comment what unit they are supposed to use. Good until at some point in the future someone has a brain fart and forgets about units, and assigns a value which is actually in calories per half-hour per acre. It should use instead an object representing the value, from a class that is aware of units and unit conversions.

Soricidus posted:

That would be a great idea if Java had operator overloading.

Hammerite posted:

The worst thing about this code is that it uses a double for something in a particular unit and that the user has to be reminded with a little comment what unit they are supposed to use. Good until at some point in the future someone has a brain fart and forgets about units, and assigns a value which is actually in calories per half-hour per acre. It should use instead an object representing the value, from a class that is aware of units and unit conversions.

seiken posted:

QuarkJets posted:

Variable declaration and scope are way simpler more loving broken in Python than in any of those other languages, so this is just

Forgall posted:

Why do you have 10,000+ line code files though?

Soricidus posted:

QuarkJets posted:

Maybe you can explain the problems a little more, because I have absolutely no idea what you mean. I've been using Python for a decade and never ran into any weird variable declaration or scope issues, but I also don't try to treat all variables as global

EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:

oh hey i see we work for the same company

seiken posted:

Python code:

> x = 1
> print [x for x in xrange(0, 4)]
[0, 1, 2, 3]
> print x
3
> def f(): print x
> f()
3
> def f(): print x; x = 1
> f()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in f
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'x' referenced before assignment

turns out having no proper scopes other than function and no variable declaration means everything is hack to make anything behave sensibly, who would have thought

eithedog posted:

Still, I guess, teaching about O times of algorithms, data structures and why data types matter would be something I'd recommend.

seiken posted:

Python code:

> x = 1
> print [x for x in xrange(0, 4)]
[0, 1, 2, 3]
> print x
3
> def f(): print x
> f()
3
> def f(): print x; x = 1
> f()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in f
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'x' referenced before assignment

turns out having no proper scopes other than function and no variable declaration means everything is hack to make anything behave sensibly, who would have thought

Joda posted:

Isn't this more within the scope of an Algorithms and Data Structures course and less within the scope of an introductory programming course? I think if it's the first course and you have no prior programming experience, being tasked with implementing and analysing the running time of algorithms and understand how, say, a hashmap or a queue works might be a bit much to swallow. The entire purpose of an introductory programming course is to get acquainted with how you write code, syntax, tools at your disposal from the standard libraries, good customs and maybe a bit of hardware understanding depending on the language.

Dominoes posted:

Speaking of which:

What's the proper way to handle this?

eithedog posted:

You're right - as, if you don't know how to write code at all, how can you know which approach is best to tackle the given problem, how to write adaptable code and how will the code scale accordingly depending upon the circumstances. However, if you're only taught of a language, without touching these things, you're hardly to blame if you produce, well... examples from this thread. Doing things "properly", I guess, doesn't matter at that point.

Dominoes posted:

It would be nice to have comprehension/genexp/lambda scope in Python. The variables they use feel like boilerplate, so no need to have them interfere with things outside the compr.

The global behavior you demonstrated at the end is counter-intuitive and confusing, although convention is not to use them except for a few uses like constants and settings. I remember stumbling into a similar case when learning and being thoroughly confused.

Speaking of which:

What's the proper way to handle this?