Programming Pedagogy

A friend of mine finishing up his education degree at the University of Alberta is taking an introductory computer science course.

Right now he’s learning how to implement bubble sort in C++. How much more frustrating and pointless can you get?

If they’re teaching algorithms, then C++ is a terrible choice of language. If they’re teaching practical programming skills, then implementing a bubble sort is a complete waste of time. It makes me wonder how much uselessness I’m being taught.