Systematic instruction in simple programming gambits
Michael P. Barnett · ACM SIGCSE Bulletin · 1978
This paper describes an approach to teaching programming that the writer follows in his sections of the main introductory PL/I programming course at Brooklyn College, in a forthcoming text - An Introduction to PL/I Programming, and in material being prepared for use in the local public schools. The subject is developed by reference to carefully paced examples of programs that use different programming “gambits”, in isolation and in combination. The programs all relate to plausible applications. The gambits have been systematized, and an order of presentation established that matches the developing needs of professionals in other disciplines, whose potential use of computers is dominated by information processing rather than numerical computation.