Exam Board Deletes C and PHP From CompSci A-Levels

VitaminB52 writes "A-level computer science students will no longer be taught C, C#, or PHP from next year following a decision to withdraw the languages by the largest UK exam board. Schools teaching the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance's (AQA) COMP1 syllabus have been asked to use one of its other approved languages — Java, Pascal/Delphi, Python 2.6, Python 3.1, Visual Basic 6, and VB.Net 2008. Pascal/Delphi is 'highly recommended' by the exam board because it is stable and was designed to teach programming and problem-solving."

Comments

Dumbing Down

[bhunachchicken]

"The board "highly recommended" switching to Pascal/Delphi because it is stable and was designed to teach programming and problem solving. Teachers planning to use Java are warned that many universities are considering dropping it from their first year computer science programmes, "as has happened in the US"."

Okay, seriously - in London, where I work, I don't think any of these guys would be able to get a job once they had graduated. Job listings I have looked at demand the following skills:

Java (with Spring, Hibernate, Multi-threading, low latency, Swing, Junit)
C#
C/C++ (financial organizations still turn to C for high volume number crunching)
Unix / Linux (are they going to drop this next???)
SQL (Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server)
Subversion, Clearcase, CVS

None of this stuff can be picked up quickly, so the earlier you start, the better. And, no offense, but I rarely - if ever - see a job listing requesting Pascal/Delphi.

Is this a case of dumbing down or are students just becoming lazy(-er)..?

Then why not C?

[mangu]

If you understand programming, picking up any given language is straightforward.

How can you understand programming if you don't understand how it works under the hood?

Teaching assembly (which CPU?) wouldn't be practical but C is the next best thing. I agree with you that any programmer should be able to pick up a new language without too much effort, but unless you know how the internal structures of the programs work you will never be able to write good code, at best your code will be painfully slow, at worst it will be outright dangerous.

If only one language is taught, then it should be C for anyone who expects to be a professional programmer, knowing C they can easily pick up any other procedural language. A programmer who doesn't know C is like a doctor who doesn't know anatomy.

Re:Then why not C?

[confused one]

First of all, I believe they're talking about a U.S. high school level course. Second, having learned on BASIC and Pascal myself, I can assure you that you can learn fundamentals and internal operations using those languages.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something

[MrZilla]

Maybe because resumes get sent to HR and management, not experienced programmers?

Exactly. When a manager is looking to hire a person, knowing that "we create our software using C", he expects to see "Knowledge of the C language" on the resume he gets.

Trying to argue that you extensive knowledge of Pascal, JAVA and Assembly for the given platform means you will be able to work efficiently anyways, since you'll very quickly pick up the C knowledge needed, probably won't get you hired, even if it is true.

Of course, there might be the special case where an intimate knowledge of setjump or the structure of the stack during a function call might be needed, but I think those cases are somewhat rare.

A-Level, not Degree

[mccalli]

For those who don't know, these are 16-18 year olds typically and they would normally be using these exams as a stepping stone to University. They wouldn't be computer science specialists at this point.

At this level, I agree with the decision. You're looking for aptitude and interest at this stage, not machine specifics. Pascal is a good language for expressing and solving problems and was enough to get my attention when I was doing A Levels twenty years back - in Turbo Pascal.

Cheers,
Ian

Remember this is only A-level

[Nick Fel]

For those outside the UK, that's the two optional years for 16-18 year olds at the end of secondary school. They're not churning out qualified programmers, they're churning out people who have a basic idea of what programming is and might want to pursue it at university. When I did the AQA Computing A-Level we were taught QBASIC and VBA. It didn't stunt my career too much.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something

[Sockatume]

Yeah, just to get this down for our transatlantic friends, high school is mandatory until 16. Then we can begin studying S, A/S, and A-levels*, and the grades we get for those are requisites for university entry. A BSc in Biochemistry might require AABB including mathematics and at least one science, for example.

*(Intermediates, Highers, and Advanced Highers in Scotland)

Re:Maybe I'm missing something

[marcosdumay]

Not so. Pascal is way simpler than C on things like string handling and allocation sizes, and that is because of abstraction.