Do we need Flash or Java anymore?

[mavhc]

AQA 2020 course will allow C#, Python, or VB.net, OCR says teach something new or they won't be able to demonstrate all the required constructs.

[paulkerton]

Objective C is dead now, C should be rarely used, and you put Swift in there twice.

Why do we teach French or German not Sylheti or Uyghur? Because they're popular and useful.

Javascript should also be taught as that's the most popular language, and HTML/CSS and SQL as they're used by pretty much everybody.

 

Objective C, C# and C are still all in the top ten most used coding languages in the world, so I wouldn't suggest they are dead languages just yet but I'd certainly not start with it personally, I'd go straight to Python or Javascript.

 

Though I totally agree with the point, teach useful and popular languages. Teaching BASIC or Pascal in 2020 is as useful as teaching Old English in TEFL lessons cause it might help with their syntax in the future.

[vikpaw]

This is wrong IMO. Computing is a subject designed to teach how to code. Not how to code in a specific language. The subject should be teaching, and emphasising, the basics - data structures, loops, operators, strong vs weak typing, etc... Those are all transferable skills, and will apply in all languages. If the best way of doing that is using something like BASIC, go for it. If its Python or Go, have at it.

 

The reality is, the concepts are what matter, not the specific syntax. A good teacher will be showing multiple languages and how they implement those concepts. Its why computing generally goes up in complexity, from something like Logo to Scratch to Python etc... It shows how those skills transfer - after all, a for loop is a for loop regardless of language.

 

Just so long as you aren't teaching them Javascript, we're all good. Because that would just be sadism.

Happened to be in an Apple shop recently and they were running a kids coding class. Quite interesting. All about the basic concepts, no language required at all.

 

Got my first warning / reminder on Chrome today about the end of Flash.

<-- v.v.small! The link just goes to the 2017 article.