Should Students Be Taught With or Without an IDE?

bblazer asks: "Beginning this next school year, there is a strong possibility I will be teaching an intro to Java and an intro to Python course at the local community college. I was wondering what the prevailing wisdom is when it comes to teaching languages - should students be taught with or without an IDE? I am a bit old school and wouldn't mind having them all use vi or emacs, but using a good IDE does have some advantages as well. I should note that the students I will be teaching will have had at least 1 semester of programming in VB or C++." Even though there is limited time in a semester, could a curriculum be constructed to accommodate both methods?

Integrated Development Environment

[caryw]

An integrated development environment.

I could ramble on about it, but I'll just link you to the wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]
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Free is good

[LihTox]

I'm completely naive as far as IDEs are concerned, but is there a freeware IDE available for these languages? It won't matter while they're in school, maybe, but if they become comfortable with a program, and then leave school and find out the program runs $900, they will be in a (minor) bind if they want to do some programming on their own. (I'm thinking of the parallel case of people working with Matlab and Mathematica; yes they are great programs to work with, but as an unemployed physicist I can't afford either one.)

Re:I would say IDEs

[rossifer]

no.

as long as they trust the editor to catch their mistakes, they'll never actually learn to avoid them; they'll simply let the IDE be their guide and never learn it.

Exactly. I've been developing software for 12 years and I still go back to emacs whenever I want to learn a new technique, technology, or toolkit. The dev work may take a little bit longer, but I learn so much more when I have to search through directories or look up an interface in the documentation that you just don't get with an IDE.

I strongly recommend staying close to the metal as possible when learning, then gradually getting more abstracted as your grasp of the underlying skill develops.

(The AC is probably one of that group of programmers whose code I have to rewrite, but I guess we'll never know for certain... :-)

Regards,
Ross

Re:I would say IDEs

[MimsyBoro]

I would just like to back the parent up.

And although it might be considerd karma-whoring I would like to post a link to a great article: Does visual studio rot the mind? [charlespetzold.com].

I think this is true, although the author of the article does agree, he then continues to say that VS is a necessary evil, well I guess he just hasn't met emacs yet (or vi for you vi-fans out there)

Re:Go with what they are familiar with.

[KingMotley]

Go with the IDE. Unless the purpose of the course is about how to get things to compile, and how to use outdated editors (Like vi), dropping them on the command line will just turn your course from Java/Python into a unix/linux 101 class instead. Overburdoning your students with cryptic command line syntax (For a specific compiler and editor -- of which they will probably use neither of ever again) doesn't really do your students that much good, and lands up detracting from them learning the language itself.

I'm all for teaching basic command line skills to those that actually want to do it for a living, but that's a different course entirely.

Re:Why hate MS?

[Danga]

You can also thank them for making an awesome IDE.

I agree. After I left school I had almost no experience programming for windows (not a bad thing). But it was VERY nice to have VS since my first job was programming windows apps. I had used UltraEdit all through school and (while UE is awesome) it was nice to have a built in debugger as well as all the other goodies VS has. It is seriously the 2nd MS app I am happy to use (the other not being an app but Windows XP Pro is pretty damn good too IMHO).

How I was taught

[Fjodor42]

Just to chime in with a case story.

At Aarhus University, Denmark, the introductory course is taught using BlueJay and the book "Objects First with Java", ISBN 0-13-124933-9. It is quite pedagogical, and thoroughly teaches the concepts of objects/classes, and BlueJay represents structures using UML. The next course, Programming 2, is then taught on the basis of using emacs, but with students being free to use vi(m), Eclipse or whatever they preferred. This is with the book "Object Oriented Design and Patterns", ISBN 0-471-74487-5, which I can also recommend. Worth noting is, that at AU, the semesters are divided into 2 quarters, so the introductory and the second course runs over just one semester. /Fjodor

My Experience Teaching

[dcollins]

I also teach at a community college for the past 4 years. The students need a LOT of help (you'll be flabbergasted) -- enrollment is down 50% in the last few years all over the country, administrators tell me students are "scared" of programming, etc.

Here's what I do. Get the best book you can find and work lockstep with that book. Do the same in class as they'll be seeing in the book. They don't have the capacity to learn multiple environments and compare & contrast mentally.

For me, I fell in love with Lewis & Loftus "Java Software Solutions". It comes with a CD with all the code, SDK, and free jGRASP IDE (and very good supplemental materials). So that's what I use; students just install everything on the CD and they're good to go.

Having my materials all strongly synchronized is more important than any particular ideology to me. If the book emphasized command-line work I'd do that. (I do have a single handout describing command-line development which more advanced students might wish to pursue.)