Teaching C/C++ to computer science students with pascal programming experience
Cristina Cifuentes, Barry Brannan · 1996
Tasmanian TCE Computer Science college students learn the basic concepts of structured programming using the Pascal language. For these students, a specially tailored first semester Computer Science 1 unit has been developed at the University of Tasmania and is the subject of this paper. The main aim of this unit is to challenge students with advanced programming concepts and skills not formally taught elsewhere in our curriculum. Since 1995, we are teaching C in a C++ environment to Computer Science 1 students. The introduction of C++ derived from the 1994 curriculum review and is inline with students' expectations. However, the lack of suitable teaching materials for students with some programming experience is a hurdle that needs to be addressed in this unit. The development of a set of sample multi-file programs has been used to help students learn by reading good quality code. We also look into developing students' debugging skills and ensuring they know how to use the debugger. 1...