Language Trends in Introductory Programming Courses

Abstract

Deciding what to teach novice programmers about programming and, in particular, which programming language to teach to novice programmers, and how to teach it, is a common topic for debate within universities. Should an industry relevant programming language be taught, or should a language designed for teaching novices be used? In order to design tools and methodologies for the teaching of novice programmers it is important to uncover what is being taught, and in turn, what will be taught in the future. A census of introductory programming courses administered within all Australian universities has been undertaken. The census aimed to reveal not only what computer programming languages are being taught, but also how they are being taught. From the results of this census two key factors emerged: perceived industry pressure for graduates with certain language skills versus academic training for generic programming skills.

A survey of literature on the teaching of introductory programming

“…Paul Tymann's data comes from an online survey of the SIGCSE community carried out in 2005 [96]. deRaadt et al [27,28] conducted similar surveys in Australia and New Zealand in 2001 and 2003, and a much earlier one was done by Stephenson and West in 1998 [92]. These surveys indicate that the most widely used languages have not changed during this time span -Java, C++ and C have continuously been among the top four languages.…”

“…Studies have found that market appeal/industry demand/student demand is one of the most important factors affecting language choice in computer science education [31,27,28]. As an example, Rochester Institute of Technology dropped Eiffel as its introductory programming language primarily because of student demand to learn a language that would be useful after graduation.…”

A survey of literature on the teaching of introductory programming

“…We begin by reviewing language and paradigm trends in introductory programming courses. We consider paradigm along with language because languages may be taught in a manner that does not take advantage of the paradigm to which a language belongs [27,28]. We also look at trends in industry.…”

A Review of Australasian Investigations into Problem Solving and the Novice Programmer

“…An Australasian census of introductory programming courses was conducted in (de Raadt, Watson and Toleman, 2002) and again in 2003. The most recent census uncovered 85 introductory programming courses (71 in Australia and 14 in New Zealand).…”