Experiences in the teaching of the DataFlow paradigm: Lessons learned

Abstract

The DataFlow paradigm has been existing for a long time, but good enough enabling technologies have been made available only very recently. The teaching of a different from the mainstream paradigm, such as the DataFlow paradigm, encounters a few problems. If a new paradigm is presented among experienced professionals, the presentation is often received with resistance. If a new paradigm is presented before students, the presentation is always received with enthusiasm, especially if tools and libraries that support the paradigm do exist. In order to overcome the problem with introducing the new paradigm, a series of courses was organized for Universities in the USA and Europe, to teach the DataFlow paradigm, using the Maxeler approach as the baseline for practical work. The course is organized in three different levels: (A) full-hour presentation that includes introducing the programming model with hands-on examples, which is most appropriate for research groups at Universities (B) a certified full-day short-course that students could use as an extension to diploma, (C) full-semester course for credits that is part of graduation requirement. This paper discusses different methods and their results, which could be used in order to efficiently introduce any different from the mainstream paradigm. The results presented in this paper are for 10 universities in the group A, 10 in the group B, and 10 in the group C. Where appropriate, the findings are backed with statistics data.