MS/Waterloo Curriculum Deal On Hold

Plummer writes "After announcing a recent deal with Microsoft that would see C# become a mandatory portion of first year electrical and computer engineering, the University of Waterloo has backed off and asked for a year to evaluate the proposal. The year will be used to evaluate the merits of the language and ensure that any curriculum changes made, will meet the standards UW engineering is known for. The full story here and here."

Comments

Why not teach C#?

[Istealmymusic]

I admit I've never coded in C# and only dabbled in Java, but I see nothing wrong with Microsoft requiring Waterloo to teach C# in the core curriculum. C and C++ are quite dated, but C# was built from the ground up and does not suffer from the many subtle pitfalls that Objective C does.

Face it, Java was going to be the killer language until Sun prevented Microsoft from including the Sun VM in Windows. Without a Java VM, Java can go no where, but C#, being Microsoft-based, will no doubt be supported in near future versions of Windows to come. Its all about practicality: if students have to install a Java V, a C++/C/ObjC/Python compiler on their systems at home, knowledge of the language will be less effective.

Combined with Microsoft's powerful OS share, I believe C# will be the best choice for entrepreneurs in business, at least until Unix gains more usage in such fields. Either C#, or VBScript. One reason: integration.

Re:Bring Back Pascal!

[drinkypoo]

If you want to send people to the basics, make them learn on something which sucks like x86 assembler. Let's see here, you always have to think about endian-ness, especially when dealing with large amounts of data, and you have things in weird memory locations, because the classes always use dos as their basis.

Then if they stick with assembler they will either A> be able to write code for crappy CPUs, or B> be delighted when they move to something from motorola. If they move on then they'll have a sound base and will have learned not to make fencepost errors. They will also have spent significant time in the debugger, which can only be good for them.

The beauty of this is that Pascal goes to only one place: Delphi. Delphi sucks balls, it makes super crashy bloated slow applications. Oh sure it's powerful, but it's seriously goddamned unreliable. But assembler goes all over the place because it's got a minimal set of functions and it will teach you to optimize, really think about what you're doing.

And finally, assembler also teaches a direct respect for what's going on inside that CPU. Maybe that's what's needed today to stop people from needlessly throwing away clock cycles on inefficient sorts and such.

I still don't see the problem.

[Inoshiro]

We have: teach C# to make your graduates more employable, and more successful -- leading to potentially more donations from alumni

OR

teach C# to make your graduates more employable, and more successful -- leading to potentially more donations from alumni AND GET PAID FROM MICROSOFT.

Either way, the courses are going to be the same. That they get some money on the side is fine by me, as long as the pass on the savings to students by reducing CS tuition. When you're a student who has to dedicate over 50% of your income to school, you appreciate what the school can do to get more money from corporations instead of you.