Hi all, Here's my two penneth worth, Good argument, taught myself VB - nice but limited use (windows only), taught myself cobol - loved every minute of it, still do, taught myself (well it was a further ed lecturer) pascal - loved every minute of it, still do I have a lunchtime class (I'm not a teacher remember) of volunteer pupils learning to program in pascal using FreePascal (www.freepascal.org I think) under windows, they use the dos command line and the msdos editor, for flowcharts they use dia, for documentation abiword - these pupils range in age from 11 years to 16 years and have no problem with these applications - wait until I get them onto Linux. I have also written several pages for out intranet on programming in pascal - there are kids here who go into the school library and teach themselves during thier own lunchtimes..... These kids are learning structured programming techniques - define the problem, write it in 'psuedocode', draw up a flowchart if necessary, then code it, compile it, edit it, compile it again, run it and test it. My eight year old daughter wants to learn pascal (but she wants to learn it under Linux - she doesn't like windows!) At this school we are introducing pupils to Linux and Mac OS/X - face it, more than any other skill pupils need to be able to adapt and convert thier skills from one platform to another - pupils can do this BUT teachers won't even try! Face it guys, us 'ere ICT professionals have to, as part of our jobs, adapt, learn and implement technologies that we have never seen before - don't expect teachers to do this... (awaits flame war from teachers on list). I have my reasons for making this statement - I've had twenty+ years in education as a technician / systems admin - 5 in further ed with cracking staff who knew what they were doing and could adapt between different os's and applications -strangely enought 95% of these people were not teachers - they were ex industry for one reason or another! Anyway, enough rant - teach pascal, then c or c++, teach basic if you have to but, use a structured version that runs on the command line - kids don't give a damn about the pretty interface - if it says 'hello joe bloggs' on the screen and they've written it themselves then they are happy..... Alan ----------------------------------------------------- Alan Harris Network Manager Bryngwyn School Tel : 01554 750661 Fax : 01554 758255 E-mail: alanh@bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch.uk ----------------------------------------------------- Notes: 1. The contents of this email may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown purposes! Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000. 2. The opinions expressed in this email are personal and may not be shared by Bryngwyn School. -----------------------------------------------------