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Re: revolts against Scheme, etc.



At 4:28 PM +0000 1/23/01, Jerzy Karczmarczuk wrote:
>Matthias Felleisen wrote:
> > We did this for a brief time in the mid/early 90s.
>
>...
>
> >  1. The more C++ they had seen, the more they preferred Scheme.
> >
> >  2. Girls preferred Scheme over C++ by a ratio of 4:1.
>
>2. Girls are rarely fascinated by programming languages in general.
>   They don't really care which language they use, provided the
>   exercises are sufficiently interesting. Scheme is in favour, but
>   mainly because "my" girls don't like syntactic complexities of
>   C.

The recent report by the American Association of University Women 
echoes Jerzy's comments (http://www.aauw.org/2000/techsavvy.html). 
It suggests not that languages are an issue, but that how we present 
programming to the students is an issue -- what we ask them to do, 
how we present programming, and what we tell them programming is for 
all influence how students perceive programming.  AAUW suggests that 
we're not doing that well now.

Mark

P.S.  Unless you folks are teaching high school students, I suggest 
that "women" or perhaps "ladies" is more appropriate.  Many female 
adults that I know find it demeaning to be referred to as "girls."

--------------------------
Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
Associate Professor - Learning Sciences & Technologies.
Collaborative Software Lab - http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl/
(404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial@cc.gatech.edu
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html