Author here. Thanks for your comments blahedo. I'm a bit short on time right now, but I will convert some parts of this response into more coherent form and edit my article accordingly to clarify.
I'll address each of your paragraphs in turn:
1.) Re: CS0 vs. CS1. Like you mentioned, I was very upfront about the methodology for this analysis. And I am very aware that most CS majors do not ever take a CS0 course. But please also be aware that there are a minority of CS majors that do take CS0 before moving onto CS1, usually because they feel ill-equipped to take CS1 right away. I harp on this point because even though this is a minority population, it's a very important one since those are students who, without CS0, would not major in CS. These students are more likely to be female or from underrepresented minority groups. On a related note, a larger and larger fraction of non-CS majors are taking CS courses because they recognize the value of programming and computational thinking. (Again, these non-CS majors are more likely to be female and from underrepresented minority groups.) So I would argue that CS0 is just as important as an "introductory programming" course as CS1, if not more important, due to the rise of the non-software-engineers-who-want-to-learn-programming population. [Edit: And I think that a CS department's choice of language to offer to the CS0 student population is still very significant, and a decision that is not made hastily.]
2.) Re: Python CS0 and Java CS1. You are absolutely right, and in my original article, this sentence appears in the discussion section: "Some schools have fully switched over to Python, while others take a hybrid approach, offering Python in CS0 and keeping Java in CS1."
3.) Re: AP exams using Java. Thanks for the clarification. I will remove "it's unclear whether that will change anytime soon." from the article.
[Also, as to cyorir's comment that the chosen data may have been cherry-picked, please rest assured that I tried my best NOT to cherry pick. If I had cherry picked, wouldn't I have made Python look even better? ;) Any incomplete data is strictly due to human error or oversight on my part, and I gladly welcome any correction requests via email.]
Thanks for responding! Do you still have in your notes the breakdown for each course whether it's CS0 or CS1? That would be good to put into the table in some form so the rest of us can make our own judgements about what that might mean. I don't disagree it's important, for many of the reasons you mention; I only really disagree with its characterisation as a majority intro language.
Indeed, I expect that when they're broken out, Python will be the overwhelming top choice for CS0, and a respectable second in CS1; but then, that's not as big a change as you might think. I'd be surprised if Java was ever a majority or even a plurality in CS0 courses. One subgroup of what you're calling CS0---the ones focussed on programming, often called a "service" course and targeted at engineering and science majors---have long been using things like C or Matlab, and never really had a strong movement towards Java. The other subgroup, what I'd call the "true" CS0 (i.e. based on what the ACM/IEEE curriculum guidelines used to call CS0) may have had no programming at all, or if they did, a short unit in a relatively lightweight language, certainly not Java.
Basically, the things that make for a good language in either kind of non-majors course are not always the same as what makes for a good language in a intro-for-majors course. That doesn't make the non-majors course unimportant and it doesn't mean that decisions are made hastily, but it's still not super helpful to conflate the two.
great suggestions. sadly i am limited by time and bandwidth. this was a weekend hack that i did by myself, so it's unclear how much more rigorous i can make the analysis. i'll try to incorporate some lightweight edits for clarification, though.
wow great questions! right now www.pythontutor.com is my ongoing effort to support Python CS0/CS1. REPLs are important for live programming via trial-and-error. see:
http://pgbovine.net/teaching-librarians-programming.htm
ML (OCaml and SML) seems to get short shrift in your analysis. CS51 at Harvard is in OCaml. Brown's cs017 is OCaml, Scheme, Scala and Java. Penn's CS120 is OCaml (I think. It definitely used to be, but I can't find the course online anymore. You can reach out to Benjamin Pierce to ask, though.) And CMU has an SML-based FP course as part of their intro sequence
None of this is to deny the fact that Python is highly popular as an intro language.
Thanks, will look into those and update accordingly. However, Harvard CS51 doesn't count as CS1 since CS50 is already its CS1 course. (But please correct me if I'm wrong.)
(arg can't reply to your reply) this is actually quite important ... let me keep looking into this. sorry there's a giant backlog of (often angry!) emails in my inbox right now ... might not be able to sort thru them all :)
i wish the blogging platform supported some version-control friendly format.
[Edit: I made a typo about Penn CS120 ... I mistakenly found another course named CS120 that wasn't at Penn. Also, Harvard CS51 calls itself "Computer Science II" [1], implying that it's a CS2 course. It probably has CS50 as a prereq, tho I haven't double-checked yet.]
It depends on what CS1 really means. I do think cs51 is comparable to CIS120 at Penn, and I think the later is pretty clearly CS1. That said, I find it hard to really figure out what the precise criteria are. It's pretty clear that Harvard encourages concentrators to take cs50, but I think the same course at other institutions would often be skipped by concentrators.
@yminsky -- yep, taxonomies r hard :) but i'm trying to go as much as possible by what each department proclaims for itself rather than trying to calibrate across departments. If Harvard calls a class "Computer Science II", I'm going to consider it as CS2. (fwiw I consider Harvard CS50 a hybrid of CS0 and CS1 since students voluntarily split themselves into two tracks called "less comfortable" and "more comfortable", respectively.)
I would have thought cs50 is a cs0 course, and cs51 is the cs1. cs50 is the concentrators-and-non-concentrators course that's all flash and fun. What do you think is the cs0 at Harvard?
As for your point about Penn's CS120, I guess I don't fully understand the criterion. From the way you described it, CS120 seems like a CS1 course: not for someone who has had zero programming, but the very first course taken by most CS concentrators.
FWIW, I spoke to Benjamin Pierce about the structure of the course, and he said he didn't want to use "Real World OCaml" because it's too early of a course: he has students who he thinks don't yet understand things like what a scope is. From the sense I got from him, it's quite early in the curriculum.
That said, this is mostly minor quibbling. I think there's little doubt that "very early" courses, for some reasonable definition of "very early", lean towards Python. And reasonably so.
I'm not sure how you define CS0, but my understanding is that there are now three introductory CS courses at Harvard: CS1, CS50, and CS51. Note that I graduated in 2007, so my understanding may be dated.
CS1 is intended for non-concentrators or people with very little prior CS experience.
CS50 is the standard intro course that most CS concentrators (or people considering CS as a concentration) take. Although it's taken by non-concentrators, most of the non-concentrators taking the course do so because they're in some field that has a lot of exposure to programming (e.g. Applied Math).
CS51 is the "advanced" intro course and is usually not the first CS course a CS concentrator takes, if for no other reason that it's not offered until the spring semester.
I went to Penn and TAed for some lower level CS courses (but not 120).
CIS120 is the course for students who have some programming experience, and probably falls under CS1. I had taken AP Java AB before and was overprepared for the old (Java) version of the course. The current course teaches basic data structures and uses Ocaml.
Penn's CIS120 is half OCaml and half a continuation of Java from 110 (the first course). Python is not found in the intro courses at Penn. Just Java and OCaml.
...it's a very important one since those are students who, without CS0, would not major in CS. These students are more likely to be female or from underrepresented minority groups.
I'm curious - would the group be less important if they were less likely to be female/non-asian minority? I get this impression from your text, though you don't actually state it explicitly. As a result I'm curious what your actual view is.
English isn't very good at expressing set logic, and I'm no mathematician :)
You can delete this sentence -- These students are more likely to be female or from underrepresented minority groups. -- and the meaning of the previous sentence remains unchanged. The key point is that CS0 is important for attracting people who didn't have prior background in computing and thus could have a latent interest in CS that would otherwise go unmet. Now, it turns out that a larger fraction of those students are from certain underrepresented groups, but even if that weren't true, it wouldn't make the case for CS0 any less important for the "group" that I think you're referring to, which is "students who have latent interest in CS but not enough prior exposure to know that they would love CS." (I wish I could've expressed that in an elegant mathematical equation!)
[Edit: when I wrote "even though this is a minority population", I didn't mean "minority" in the underrepresented minority sense ... I meant that this is a small population compared to all CS majors. Again, English != set logic]
My question was slightly different - would the helping the group of people taking CS0 be less important if that group was comprised entirely of asian males?
I couldn't tell if the sentence was meant to support your main argument ("we should help group X because lots of non-asian minorities") or if it was merely a curiosity that was irrelevant to the main argument ("ooh look, lots of non-asian minorities, statistically unlikely therefore interesting").
(argh can't reply to replies) -- @yummyfajitas -- no i don't think it would be fundamentally different, since the mission would still be to bring out the most of people's natural potential and interest in a subject, to kindle a spark that might have otherwise been unlit due to lack of early exposure.
[Edit: I'm not eloquent enough to make a convincing case at 2:20am, but I don't think that extra sentence was merely a curious non-sequitur, even if it could be cut without modifying the point of that paragraph. I can list out tons of points/counterpoints in my head ("what about redheaded people with thin left eyebrows? why not mention them? would that be a non-sequitur? what about the historical and socioeconomic implications behind this demographic group and its relationship to technological access? ..."), but I don't have enough expertise to give this topic a proper treatment. So I'll leave this thread by recommending the following two books:
Comments
Author here. Thanks for your comments blahedo. I'm a bit short on time right now, but I will convert some parts of this response into more coherent form and edit my article accordingly to clarify.
I'll address each of your paragraphs in turn:
1.) Re: CS0 vs. CS1. Like you mentioned, I was very upfront about the methodology for this analysis. And I am very aware that most CS majors do not ever take a CS0 course. But please also be aware that there are a minority of CS majors that do take CS0 before moving onto CS1, usually because they feel ill-equipped to take CS1 right away. I harp on this point because even though this is a minority population, it's a very important one since those are students who, without CS0, would not major in CS. These students are more likely to be female or from underrepresented minority groups. On a related note, a larger and larger fraction of non-CS majors are taking CS courses because they recognize the value of programming and computational thinking. (Again, these non-CS majors are more likely to be female and from underrepresented minority groups.) So I would argue that CS0 is just as important as an "introductory programming" course as CS1, if not more important, due to the rise of the non-software-engineers-who-want-to-learn-programming population. [Edit: And I think that a CS department's choice of language to offer to the CS0 student population is still very significant, and a decision that is not made hastily.]
2.) Re: Python CS0 and Java CS1. You are absolutely right, and in my original article, this sentence appears in the discussion section: "Some schools have fully switched over to Python, while others take a hybrid approach, offering Python in CS0 and keeping Java in CS1."
3.) Re: AP exams using Java. Thanks for the clarification. I will remove "it's unclear whether that will change anytime soon." from the article.
[Also, as to cyorir's comment that the chosen data may have been cherry-picked, please rest assured that I tried my best NOT to cherry pick. If I had cherry picked, wouldn't I have made Python look even better? ;) Any incomplete data is strictly due to human error or oversight on my part, and I gladly welcome any correction requests via email.]
Thanks for responding! Do you still have in your notes the breakdown for each course whether it's CS0 or CS1? That would be good to put into the table in some form so the rest of us can make our own judgements about what that might mean. I don't disagree it's important, for many of the reasons you mention; I only really disagree with its characterisation as a majority intro language.
Indeed, I expect that when they're broken out, Python will be the overwhelming top choice for CS0, and a respectable second in CS1; but then, that's not as big a change as you might think. I'd be surprised if Java was ever a majority or even a plurality in CS0 courses. One subgroup of what you're calling CS0---the ones focussed on programming, often called a "service" course and targeted at engineering and science majors---have long been using things like C or Matlab, and never really had a strong movement towards Java. The other subgroup, what I'd call the "true" CS0 (i.e. based on what the ACM/IEEE curriculum guidelines used to call CS0) may have had no programming at all, or if they did, a short unit in a relatively lightweight language, certainly not Java.
Basically, the things that make for a good language in either kind of non-majors course are not always the same as what makes for a good language in a intro-for-majors course. That doesn't make the non-majors course unimportant and it doesn't mean that decisions are made hastily, but it's still not super helpful to conflate the two.
great suggestions. sadly i am limited by time and bandwidth. this was a weekend hack that i did by myself, so it's unclear how much more rigorous i can make the analysis. i'll try to incorporate some lightweight edits for clarification, though.
Given your work on modifying the Python VM, I'd love to hear your opinions on how it could be augmented to support CS0 students.
How prevalent is the REPL in CS education?
Does perceptualization play a role?
wow great questions! right now www.pythontutor.com is my ongoing effort to support Python CS0/CS1. REPLs are important for live programming via trial-and-error. see: http://pgbovine.net/teaching-librarians-programming.htm
ideally you want to mix the best of both worlds. here's a prototype demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3oarDuZPL0
ML (OCaml and SML) seems to get short shrift in your analysis. CS51 at Harvard is in OCaml. Brown's cs017 is OCaml, Scheme, Scala and Java. Penn's CS120 is OCaml (I think. It definitely used to be, but I can't find the course online anymore. You can reach out to Benjamin Pierce to ask, though.) And CMU has an SML-based FP course as part of their intro sequence
None of this is to deny the fact that Python is highly popular as an intro language.
Thanks, will look into those and update accordingly. However, Harvard CS51 doesn't count as CS1 since CS50 is already its CS1 course. (But please correct me if I'm wrong.)
(arg can't reply to your reply) this is actually quite important ... let me keep looking into this. sorry there's a giant backlog of (often angry!) emails in my inbox right now ... might not be able to sort thru them all :)
i wish the blogging platform supported some version-control friendly format.
[Edit: I made a typo about Penn CS120 ... I mistakenly found another course named CS120 that wasn't at Penn. Also, Harvard CS51 calls itself "Computer Science II" [1], implying that it's a CS2 course. It probably has CS50 as a prereq, tho I haven't double-checked yet.]
[1] http://cs51.seas.harvard.edu/docs/lectures/2013/1-overview.p...
It depends on what CS1 really means. I do think cs51 is comparable to CIS120 at Penn, and I think the later is pretty clearly CS1. That said, I find it hard to really figure out what the precise criteria are. It's pretty clear that Harvard encourages concentrators to take cs50, but I think the same course at other institutions would often be skipped by concentrators.
@yminsky -- yep, taxonomies r hard :) but i'm trying to go as much as possible by what each department proclaims for itself rather than trying to calibrate across departments. If Harvard calls a class "Computer Science II", I'm going to consider it as CS2. (fwiw I consider Harvard CS50 a hybrid of CS0 and CS1 since students voluntarily split themselves into two tracks called "less comfortable" and "more comfortable", respectively.)
I would have thought cs50 is a cs0 course, and cs51 is the cs1. cs50 is the concentrators-and-non-concentrators course that's all flash and fun. What do you think is the cs0 at Harvard?
As for your point about Penn's CS120, I guess I don't fully understand the criterion. From the way you described it, CS120 seems like a CS1 course: not for someone who has had zero programming, but the very first course taken by most CS concentrators.
FWIW, I spoke to Benjamin Pierce about the structure of the course, and he said he didn't want to use "Real World OCaml" because it's too early of a course: he has students who he thinks don't yet understand things like what a scope is. From the sense I got from him, it's quite early in the curriculum.
That said, this is mostly minor quibbling. I think there's little doubt that "very early" courses, for some reasonable definition of "very early", lean towards Python. And reasonably so.
I'm not sure how you define CS0, but my understanding is that there are now three introductory CS courses at Harvard: CS1, CS50, and CS51. Note that I graduated in 2007, so my understanding may be dated.
CS1 is intended for non-concentrators or people with very little prior CS experience.
CS50 is the standard intro course that most CS concentrators (or people considering CS as a concentration) take. Although it's taken by non-concentrators, most of the non-concentrators taking the course do so because they're in some field that has a lot of exposure to programming (e.g. Applied Math).
CS51 is the "advanced" intro course and is usually not the first CS course a CS concentrator takes, if for no other reason that it's not offered until the spring semester.
I went to Penn and TAed for some lower level CS courses (but not 120).
CIS120 is the course for students who have some programming experience, and probably falls under CS1. I had taken AP Java AB before and was overprepared for the old (Java) version of the course. The current course teaches basic data structures and uses Ocaml.
Penn's CIS120 is half OCaml and half a continuation of Java from 110 (the first course). Python is not found in the intro courses at Penn. Just Java and OCaml.
...it's a very important one since those are students who, without CS0, would not major in CS. These students are more likely to be female or from underrepresented minority groups.
I'm curious - would the group be less important if they were less likely to be female/non-asian minority? I get this impression from your text, though you don't actually state it explicitly. As a result I'm curious what your actual view is.
English isn't very good at expressing set logic, and I'm no mathematician :)
You can delete this sentence -- These students are more likely to be female or from underrepresented minority groups. -- and the meaning of the previous sentence remains unchanged. The key point is that CS0 is important for attracting people who didn't have prior background in computing and thus could have a latent interest in CS that would otherwise go unmet. Now, it turns out that a larger fraction of those students are from certain underrepresented groups, but even if that weren't true, it wouldn't make the case for CS0 any less important for the "group" that I think you're referring to, which is "students who have latent interest in CS but not enough prior exposure to know that they would love CS." (I wish I could've expressed that in an elegant mathematical equation!)
[Edit: when I wrote "even though this is a minority population", I didn't mean "minority" in the underrepresented minority sense ... I meant that this is a small population compared to all CS majors. Again, English != set logic]
My question was slightly different - would the helping the group of people taking CS0 be less important if that group was comprised entirely of asian males?
I couldn't tell if the sentence was meant to support your main argument ("we should help group X because lots of non-asian minorities") or if it was merely a curiosity that was irrelevant to the main argument ("ooh look, lots of non-asian minorities, statistically unlikely therefore interesting").
I don't know, do Asian males typically have difficulty engaging in CS content?
(argh can't reply to replies) -- @yummyfajitas -- no i don't think it would be fundamentally different, since the mission would still be to bring out the most of people's natural potential and interest in a subject, to kindle a spark that might have otherwise been unlit due to lack of early exposure.
[Edit: I'm not eloquent enough to make a convincing case at 2:20am, but I don't think that extra sentence was merely a curious non-sequitur, even if it could be cut without modifying the point of that paragraph. I can list out tons of points/counterpoints in my head ("what about redheaded people with thin left eyebrows? why not mention them? would that be a non-sequitur? what about the historical and socioeconomic implications behind this demographic group and its relationship to technological access? ..."), but I don't have enough expertise to give this topic a proper treatment. So I'll leave this thread by recommending the following two books:
http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Computing-Jane-Mar...
http://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Shallow-End-Education-Computing/...
]