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Exam Board Deletes C and PHP From CompSci A-Levels

Posted by samzenpus on from the who-needs-them dept.

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."

2 of 663 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Then why not C? by robvangelder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I agree and disagree.

    My first programming language was Motorola MC68000 on the Amiga 500. I must admit, programming languages are easy once you know what the code compiles into.

    However, object oriented programming was very, very alien to me. There are some programming topics that can't be taught by learning assembly alone.

  2. Plus, Delphi is an awesome teaching environment... by Motard · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I taught a class on Delphi to a group of mostly non-programmers. It was very successful. Consider...

    First project:

    1) Open Delphi
    2) Press Run

    You've just written, compiled, linked and executed your first Delphi program. We'll get into the details later.

    Second Project:

    1) Open Delphi
    2) Drop a button on the default form
    3) Drop a slider on the default form
    4) Double-click the OnChange event on the slider
    5) Type Button1.Left := Slider1.position * 10;
    6) Run

    Now I can show visually show you what this does and talk about components, objects, properties, events, syntax, variables, assignment statements, build cycles, etc. - all in ways that you can see.

    Plus, unlike Java or C#, I can show you procedural (non-OO) console app or service programming. And we can go all the way down to assembly language if you want.

    For Linux see Free Pascal and Lazarus.