Allowing and Fully Supporting Multiple Programming Languages in a Computer Graphics Course
Amit Shesh · 2019
This paper reports an experience of offering an introductory computer graphics course in two languages, Java and C++, in the same section. This was done to target a more diverse audience of students coming from different majors and concentrations. Students chose between these languages and could switch at any time during the course. All materials related to lectures, code examples and assignments were provided in both languages. Technical support was provided for both languages throughout the course. In order to streamline this effort programming environments and supporting tools were chosen and standardized for both languages. Student experience was monitored throughout the semester using survey instruments. The experience involved significant planning, overhead and expected and unexpected issues throughout the semester. Although this experience deals with a computer graphics course, we believe other courses, especially higher-level electives, can be made multi-lingual to cater to students with different backgrounds.