[redacted]

You should grow up. You lost me at "she thinks she can teach". She may or may not be a good teacher, but you are far from someone whose opinion I would fully trust.

Yes, a lot of highschool CS teachers suck. So do a lot of college professors and industry professionals. Regardless:

* knows java (not a language I would teach to starters anyway)

Java is far-and-away the most common first programming language in both highschools and university. And there is good reason to teach it in the 10th grade: the AP Computer Science test is largely Java-oriented, so your students will have a headstart in that respect.

* she says use doubles when numbers grow fast, not mentioning their purpose for high-precision decimals.[/quote]
Big numbers are a great justification for using doubles. It takes a pretty solid understanding of binary representations fully comprehend when doubles are required.

* she never mentioned floats.[/quote]
Modern languages don't even have floats: Python, Ruby, JavaScript - no floats to be seen.

* she thinks there is an _ASCII_ code for every letter in whatever alphabet. I believe she means Unicode.[/quote]
You are both right. The difference is that when using ASCII, you have to change the locale to match the character set you wish to use.

* she says (quote) "programmers use shorthand operators for no good reason". Eg. she prefers "a=a+1;" over "a++;".[/quote]
Programmers are lazy. Her way is no less correct than your's, and in some cases may be less error-prone.

What do I do? I sit and listen to how she ruins other peoples future![/quote]
Nobody's future is going to be ruined by a crappy semester of programming. Those that care will learn on their own, and those that don't care will go off and have an actual social life (this never changes: most college professors suck at teaching programming as well).

Quit obsessing over her lack of l33t h4ck3r skills, and go do all the usual highschool things - sports, girlfriends, etc. You'll only regret it later if you don't.

Sometimes you just have to realize where these people come from, what they were exposed to, and what they grew up with. I had a teacher just like that in high school, but nonetheless her background in computer science was amazing to say the least. I wouldn't have guessed it had I taken her lessons at face value. It all boils down to the fact that there are good teachers and bad teachers. The sooner you realize this, the less you will have to worry about.

Save yourself the wasted breath of any long winded arguments between yourself and her. Furthermore, if you are that worried about the other students, then maybe start a "computer club" after school where you all can gather to share ideas and experiences.

[redacted]

[quote name='swiftcoder' timestamp='1322634592' post='4888987']
... and go do all the usual highschool things - sports, girlfriends, etc. You'll only regret it later if you don't.

Regret? Why regret?[/quote]
Because you are only young once.

In a couple of years, you won't have half the time and energy you do now, to tryout a new sport, chase after that redhead, learn to fix motorcycles... But you will always have time to learn esoteric programming languages, because it's the kind of thing you can squeeze into half-hour breaks between class, work, and so-forth.

Not bad. The 10th grade language courses when I was in HS were VB6 (rofl?) and C++. The only difference was my HS teacher was crazy smart. She had like a masters in math and knew C++ inside and out. I had been using C++ for a while so I took her C++ class with 4 other students in it. She had it structured like a university course. Good times. You'd get the same level of learning from reading any C++ book though really and practicing.

I recommend just going with the flow. Anyone that is serious about programming will be programming in their spare time already. If you wanted to challenge yourself you need to dual enroll and take real CS courses at a local university/college. A lot of HSs have systems set up for that.

[quote name='wiz3kid' timestamp='1322634879' post='4888989']
[quote name='swiftcoder' timestamp='1322634592' post='4888987']
... and go do all the usual highschool things - sports, girlfriends, etc. You'll only regret it later if you don't.

Regret? Why regret?[/quote]
Because you are only young once.

In a couple of years, you won't have half the time and energy you do now, to tryout a new sport, chase after that redhead, learn to fix motorcycles... But you will always have time to learn esoteric programming languages, because it's the kind of thing you can squeeze into half-hour breaks between class, work, and so-forth.
[/quote]

^THIS^

Can't emphasize it enough. If I ever did it all again, I'd make a rule for myself of no programming after 5pm on weekends.

[redacted]

This looks like a lot of disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. If you want to point out that the kid's whining is useless, then point that out. If you want to point out that most CS instructors are pretty bad, then point that out.


But don't take some person you've never met's side on a range of issues they were wrong on to try to prove the prior points. It just makes you look like the type of person who will take an incorrect stance for the sake of argument and utterly destroys your credibility.

Valid.

[quote name='swiftcoder']
Big numbers are a great justification for using doubles. It takes a pretty solid understanding of binary representations fully comprehend when doubles are required.

Invalid. Understanding the binary behind primitive data types and why/when to use them is simple and can be grasped by a 10th grader. And he was correct. Her not pointing out the use of floats/doubles for high precision rather than just high value was poor on her part.

Invalid. There are floats in javascript. And other "modern" languages besides the few you listed use floats. CPUs are hardwired to deal with floats.

[quote name='swiftcoder']
You are both right. The difference is that when using ASCII, you have to change the locale to match the character set you wish to use.

Invalid. The obvious implication of what she said was that ASCII has a value for every character. Not true. It has 256 characters. You can arbitrarily change what these characters are mapped to but then guess what? You lose the other ones they used to be mapped to. There are more than 256 characters between all characters in all languages. Quite a bit more in fact. This kid is right. His teacher was wrong. He is also right about unicode.

Invalid. He didn't say either way was more or less correct. He said that she said that programmers use shorthand for no good reason. This isn't true. a++ is more easily descriptive than a = a + 1. It has its uses in good practice and the kid realizes this.

[quote name='swiftcoder']
Nobody's future is going to be ruined by a crappy semester of programming. Those that care will learn on their own,

Valid.

Invalid. Embarrassingly so. Beyond the need for explanation so.

[quote name='swiftcoder']
Quit obsessing over her lack of l33t h4ck3r skills, and go do all the usual highschool things - sports, girlfriends, etc. You'll only regret it later if you don't.

Invalid. And indicative of some strange kind of envy you have for one particular subset of people.