Joint venture between Microsoft and U. of Waterloo

[IcemanJer]

article from Waterloo.

"Under curriculum integration, first-choice applicants to UW's E&CE program will be allowed to take a new pre-university programming course in C#, E&CE 050. Completion of this course will be mandatory for students entering the E&CE program. C# is a new programming language developed by Microsoft.

The existing course E&CE 150, an introductory course to programming, will change from using C++ to C#."

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[IcemanJer]

bump? c'mon ppl..

 

[Handle]

Interesting. Microsoft does a lot (let me repeat: a lot) of recruiting in Waterloo, so, in all honesty, in makes sense for their graduates to know some C#. Not a great reason, but a reason nonetheless.

I think people are making a huge deal about this simply because it is Microsoft. If the positions were reversed, and Sun was donating money and Java was being taught back when Java was young, I don't think there would be any uproar at all.

That being said, I do think that it is an inappropriate move to be using C# for a mandatory pre-university course, and for the intro-level programming course. Students need to learn their pointers. Students need to learn their pointers. Students need to learn their pointers. If only to weed out the people who really shouldn't be programming.

That also being said, I've used a bit of C#, and I prefer the syntax of C# when compared to Java.

 

[kami]

Dude that's my city. Wow I feel special.

 

[IcemanJer]

I guess what I can't believe is that they're not enforcing C++ as a prerequisite language to know. It's a bit unnerving to know that Waterloo isn't going to teach its students about pointers and solid memory management with C++...

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: IcemanJer
I guess what I can't believe is that they're not enforcing C++ as a prerequisite language to know. It's a bit unnerving to know that Waterloo isn't going to teach its students about pointers and solid memory management with C++...

that's not exactly accurate, from what you quoted here, it sounds like it's just for one course. i would be extremely surprised if they never taught pointers at some point in the program.