Undoing The Sequential Mindset: The Software-CAD Approach

Abstract

This paper proposes a non-traditional approach to teaching programming, characterized here as the “Software-CAD” approach, which is particularly appropriate for students in professional computing programs, such as computer engineering, who need to acquire as early as possible a “total systems” view of computing embracing both hardware and software, and which can help to instil in any type of student good notions about program design. In this approach, programming is taught from the start in terms of a model of interconnected machines, using a graphical notation rooted in a an appropriate programming language (e.g., Modula2 or Ada) and supported by Software-CAD laboratory tools. Such an approach helps to undo the “sequential mindset” which traditional ways of teaching programming in languages such as Fortan, Pascal and C tend to impart. The paper outlines a set of courses following the approach and points to successful experience with prototypes of some of the courses at Carleton University and U.C. Santa Cruz, using both Ada and Modula2 (though not yet with supporting CAD tools), to indicate that the approach is feasible and promising and that students accept and like it. Although the approach can be followed without CAD laboratory support, such support is desirable for reasons of self-motivation and efficiency; appropriate support is expected to be available soon.