Yeah, it's 'interesting' to see programming dropped from the first year curriculum of a computer science course, or one imperative programming language being rubbished over another. I've a particular problem with the former of those two, when I know so many of the people who agreed to this move away from the norm; the mind boggles...

It's always amazed me how over even an hour of a well-thought out tutorial the difference you can make to a student's (or even a group's) understanding, and to be honest, often effectively doing the course lecturers job for them. Unfortunately, all of this apparently pales into insignificance when it comes down to pure and simple numbers - the modern university is a degree factory, and the numbers must keep going up, up, up! But then, myself, Des and Bart know this first hand all too well...

I was a bit surprised to read Dave Cahill's take on IDEs, GUIs etc. While quite valid (and certainly true of past years that have gone through), if you take away the ability to program at all, such "advanced" material will simply be beyond them. I remember the day I asked, "What happens if programming moves to second year?!?" The reply? "Well, the second year courses go to third year." "And the third year courses?!?" "Oh, they go to fourth year." Before I could ask about the fourth year courses, the person I'd asked very pointedly changed the subject...