A Request

[wtd]

A request, if I may.

I've never taken a course which used Turing as the practical language, or for that matter, any CS course in eastern Canada. I want to help, though. In particular, my interest is largely helping bring about a change to a language and environment that can be more freely used by students than the proprietary Turing. I believe this would remove a common complaint ("how can I get Turing to work with at home?"), make continued development of the environment more reliable, and allow students to appeal to a larger community when questions arise.

In that spirit, I'm wondering if anyone would be so kind as to tell me what a typical curriculum involves. What concepts are covered? What order are they covered in? How much time is typically alotted to each?

I'll be grateful for any help.

[Hikaru79]

Well, I'm not a teacher, but haven taken two high-school computer science courses, in two different languages, here is what I've found to be the basics. In fact, I'll show you by listing the names of the chapters in the Grade 12 Java book.

CHAPTER 1: Computing Essentials
They just talk about the history of computers, etc. They also go into the difference between hardware and software, the basic concepts of how a computer works, etc. Nothing language-specific, as both Turing and Java books have an identical first chapter.

CHAPTER 2: The Ready To Program With Java Technology IDE
Yeah, they just treat you like a three-year old while telling you how to save, load, run, etc., source in RTP. Same goes for Turing one, since RTP and Holt's Turing editor are almost identical in terms of user functionality.

CHAPTER 3: Programming
Talks about basic programming concepts without actually throwing any code around. Things like the difference between procedure-oriented and object-oriented programming.

CHAPTER 4: Programming in Java
Almost entirely focused on the proprietary HSA console class. Totally useless.

CHAPTER 5: Basic Programming Language Concepts
Finally, something useful. They start with complete basics, like declaration of variables, console output, the primitive data types, etc.

CHAPTER 6: Input of Data
Talks about ... input. From keyboard and a file. Also deals with file output.

CHAPTER 7: Control Constructs
Talks about basic loops types, ifs, and things of that nature.

CHAPTER 8: Strings
A whole chapter dedicated to strings. Things like concatenation, .indexOf, StringTokenizer, etc.

CHAPTER 9: Methods
A good meaty chapter. Covers the basic types of methods, even going into access modifiers and the scope of variables (the kind of depth which, sadly, remains unmatched anywhere else in the textbook). Also deals with method overloading, recursive methods, and a sizable case study.

CHAPTER 10: Classes and Inheritance
Yes, they somehow introduce a student who's used to programming in Turing to the concept of Classes and Inheritance in only 19 pages, while they spent almost 30 pages dealing with "Strings". This chapter talks about creating a class, inheritance, class hierarchies, method overloading, etc. Doesn't really get into abstract classes. Uses a Logo-type turtle program as a case study.

CHAPTER 11: Applets and Graphical User Interfaces
Laughable. Talks about applets in an outdated way, and treats Applets as if they were the only way to create a GUI. Hate this chapter.

CHAPTER 12: Creating Web Pages in HTML
Yes, in a Java book. Amazingly, this chapter is almost 40 pages, and yet all it does is explain some basic HTML for the sole purpose of being able to run your own applets. This chapter is, hilariously, double the size of the chapter on Classes and Inheritance.

CHAPTER 13: Arrays
Yes, 13 chapters into the book, it talks about arrays. Talks about how to use them, multi-dimensional arrays, and also goes into some algorithm work like sorting arrays and using arrays in a sieve to find prime numbers.

CHAPTER 14: Advanced Object Oriented Concepts
Talks about abstract classes, and interfaces some more. About 90% of this chapter is just sample code for a class hierarchy consisting of an abstract "Shape" class and then some "Square" "Circle", etc subclasses.

CHAPTER 15: Records in Java
In other words, one big case study of using objects, which they call "records"

CHAPTER 16: Algorithms For Sorting Lists
An interesting chapter including sample code for insertion sort, selection sort, bubble sort, merge sort, and quick sort. Talks about algorithm complexity.

CHAPTER 17: Self-Referential Classes and Linked Lists
Talks about self-referential classes, with Linked List being the large example given. Self-explanatory.

CHAPTER 18: Advanced GUIs
More ugly, outdated applets using an API that is mostly deprecated. Ew. I hate the GUI chapters of this book.

And then it has some appendixes, mostly with large chunks of sample code, an overview of HSA classes, and an api reference of sorts for some of the more basic things.


Well, there you have it Doesn't sound hard to beat, does it wtd?