An Approach to Introductory Programming

Computer programming is a compulsory subject in most engineering curricula, and also in several science curricula. For most studentsit is also the first subject in their education in which they can actually build something. Programs can be written to do useful computation, and also to explore other subjects such as science, engineering, and even art. Computer programming has the potential to empower students and unleash their creative abilities.

We have developed an approach to teaching programming which emphasizes these aspects. We use the C++ programming language, augmented with agraphics library and some linguistic deviceswe have developed. We have found that our augmentations are very useful in explaining many programming concepts such as recursion, and of course enable visualization and graphical interaction. In addition to teaching the syntax of C++ we show how interesting programs from science, engineering, operations research can be developed with relatively little effort. We feel that this approach improves student participation, excitement, and learning.

Our proposed curriculum has been described at length in the book "An introduction to programming through C++", recently published by Mc GrawHill.