[pdx.st] Smalltalk curriculum?

Prof. Andrew P. Black black at cs.pdx.edu
Tue Dec 6 12:16:39 PST 2016


Not sure what the background is here.   

The core courses are still taught with C++ or Java.   But they are letting me teach the intro course with Grace, and I figure that I should show that its better before trying to convince them to switch from C++.  Electives will be in whatever the instructor likes — there is a lot more Python, and capstones could be in anything that keeps the customer happy.

We do have a new department head, who realizes (I think) that we need to update the intro sequence,  but we are stretched so thin right now that it’s a hard sell to actually make it happen.

	Andrew

> On 5 Dec 2016, at 10:43 , Sam Livingston-Gray <geeksam at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> As a 2007 grad, I'm not sure of the current Smalltalk landscape at PSU.  When I took CS 420 from Andrew Black about a decade ago (2005? 2006?), he taught it in Squeak, and I then went on to spend two more quarters of independent study working on an honors thesis project using Squeak.  In recent years, however, Andrew has started teaching CS 420 in Grace, a language he and others are designing specifically to teach OO concepts.  He's also been using http://poodr.info as a textbook, which is in my top five technical books.  (I've been writing Ruby professionally for a decade now, and find it to be nearly an acceptable Smalltalk.)
> 
> My experience in the CS program at PSU involved a lot of C++ and Java.  For my Data Structures classes, I implemented a solution in Python first, then reimplemented in the required language, and whenever given the choice on other assignments, I used Python, Ruby, and even PHP—but I still raised enough NullPointerExceptions to last me a lifetime.  I know they've at least talked about moving some of their core curriculum to a language like Ruby, but I haven't heard of any actual movement on that front.  My *guess* would be that little has changed, and that you might have to be strategic about elective choices in order to maximize your time spent in dynamic languages.
> 
> That said, if you're looking in the Portland area specifically, PSU has some really good profs and a decent variety of elective courses (though some of the courses listed in the catalog don't seem to get taught very often).  There will be a fair bit math (the worst of it for me was a 400-level "Stats for Engineers" and some proofs in the algorithms course), but I'd be surprised if you could find a CS program that didn't have a fair bit of math.  (And discrete math was an unexpected joy, and I still use bits of it daily.)
> 
> -Sam
> 
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 8:39 AM, Tim Johnson <digit at sonic.net> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm looking for undergraduate programs which offer some coverage of Smalltalk.  I have found that there are some Smalltalkers at Portland State University.  Is there some Smalltalk curriculum on offer there?
> 
> I'm an adult student at this point, having dropped out of university many years ago and attending community colleges full- or part-time ever since.  Math is not my favorite subject (though I certainly respect it) but I have always very much enjoyed language, the liberal arts, humanities, and programming -- which I have been pretty successful at, both as a hobby and professionally, since I was a kid.
> 
> So as I get closer to my goal of transferring back into a 4-year program, I am looking for a program that allows me to exercise my passion for Smalltalk and dynamic languages, as well the next level down (C) and data structures, without requiring me to contort my brain uncomfortably into a mathematical straitjacket.
> 
> Any tips?
> 
> Thanks,
> Tim
> 
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