Re: Free C++compilers for a classroom
* James Kanze:
On Sep 25, 3:45 pm, "Alf P. Steinbach" <al...@start.no> wrote:
* James Kanze:
Presumably, as they're students, they're not allowed to use a
debugger.
It seems you mean: it's almost a given that a modern learning
institution forbids the students learning anything about the craft
they're supposed to learn.
The craft that they are supposed to be learning is how to write
correct programs. Debuggers certainly aren't any use for that;
They are very much use for that, yes.
Because in order to write correct programs you need to understand what's
going on, and in my experience a good debugger helps the students
enormously with that.
My students, at vocational school and college level, were not steered
away from debuggers, but the opposite. However, at college level this
practical approach eventually required a hierarchy of lab assistants,
older students earning a few bucks. It's a question of organizing.
they normally are only used once the program is known to be
incorrect.
I think you mean, by professionals. But no, that's not the case either,
but I think it depends on the quality of the tools. I probably would
not have used gdb to check or figure out the system's documentation, but
some other debuggers are great tools in that respect.
Well, I don't think they forbid learning.
Which is why they would forbid debuggers, since use (or at least
abuse) of a debugger prevents learning how to reason about your
program.
Hm, "they" again. And no, using a debugger does not prevent the student
from learning to reason about his or her program. In my (rather
extensive) experience, just the opposite: it makes abstract concepts
real, so that students really get it. And in the 90's some debuggers,
especially Borland's, had some functionality specifically for that
purpose, e.g. slow animation of the program's execution. I hope current
teachers have not lost that perspective, but I fear they have, because
at least in the US the fad now is to entice students with eye-candy
multimedia instead of enticing them with really grokking the systems.
Cheers, & hth.,
- Alf
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