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Should Students Be Taught With or Without an IDE?
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?
but what is an IDE? In the case you are reffering to?
On the one hand, you're completely correct about the AP exam. It has nothing to do with developing real software, and everything to do with "data structures", "algorithms", and other things I look up when I want the details. So yes, language and compiler internals are useless for AP CS students.
On the other hand, if you want your students to really understand software, then for God's sake teach them about the call stack, the heap, and (GASP!) pointers! People need to understand somewhat what's going on under the hood.