Monday, June 30, 2008

SIGCSE 2009: The Place to Talk About New CS Curriculum Ideas

The next iteration of the ACM/IEEE Computing Curriculum recommendations is currently out for comment. A group from the ACM SIGPLAN has made a proposal that the standard be modified to require CS curricula to include as much on functional programming as on object-oriented programming. The proposal has led to a huge amount of comment, both in blogs and on the feedback site, most of which is quite positive. In my "other" blog, I recently posted criticism of the proposal (with some interesting comments from Alan Kay).

All of this discussion in the blogosphere made me realize one of the greatest benefits of the SIGCSE Symposium: It's the opportunity to discuss these kinds of proposals, face-to-face, in real-time. SIGCSE is where people report on the results of their innovations and reforms, where others can critique them, and where still others can talk about how to incorporate those changes in their own curricula. It's the forum for us to talk about best practices, and what practices should (or should not) become best practice.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

What timing, my colleague who has more expertise in PL issues just requested a dept meeting to discuss this issue (and our response) -- it's nice that we'll talk in person, shame the entire community cannot do that until next Spring (or ICER if you can get there)