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Should Students Be Taught With or Without an IDE?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the why-the-zero-sum dept.

bblazer asks: "Beginning this next school year, there is a strong possibility I will be teaching an intro to Java and an intro to Python course at the local community college. I was wondering what the prevailing wisdom is when it comes to teaching languages - should students be taught with or without an IDE? I am a bit old school and wouldn't mind having them all use vi or emacs, but using a good IDE does have some advantages as well. I should note that the students I will be teaching will have had at least 1 semester of programming in VB or C++." Even though there is limited time in a semester, could a curriculum be constructed to accommodate both methods?

2 of 848 comments (clear)

  1. Re:forgive my ignorance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dumbass. Integrated Drive Electronics interface, one of the most popular hard drive interfaces. If you or the author of the article would have simply used Google, you would find that information and the author would know that using IDE sucks and SCSI is like way better.

  2. Re:I would say IDEs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Exactly. I've been developing software for 12 years and I still go back to emacs whenever I want to learn a new technique, technology, or toolkit. The dev work may take a little bit longer, but I learn so much more when I have to search through directories or look up an interface in the documentation that you just don't get with an IDE.

    Whenever I'm trying to learn something new I get out the hard drive and move the bits around myself. IDEs like emacs just get in the way.