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Disputing Dijkstra, and Birthdays in Base 2

By Mark Guzdial, Joel C. Adams
Communications of the ACM, March 2021, Vol. 64 No. 3, Pages 12-13
10.1145/3446806
Comments (2)

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http://bit.ly/35dg21S November 30, 2020

Edsger Dijkstra's 1988 paper "On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science" (in plain text form at https://bit.ly/3b6bFto) is one of the most well-cited papers on computer science (CS) education. It is also wrong. A growing body of recent research explores the very topic that Dijkstra tried to warn us away from—how we learn and teach computer science with metaphor.

Comments

Gunnar Wolf

March 03, 2021 12:49

I am happy to see I'm not the only one obsessed with silly and fun numeralia! Twelve years ago, I mentioned this same fact to my father -- He graduated to his seventh bit on the same year I got my sixth bit. Of course, it was of significance (and it became salient) because I had reached half of his age...
I like your mapping to the different life stages... Although I do feel it a bit stretched. I feel marking adolescence before 10-11 years old is pulling it too early. But, yes, the text talks about a rough comparison, it's not making rigorous claims nor presenting specialized bibliography backing each of its claims... So I will just smile and thank you for writing!

Caj Svensson

March 04, 2021 02:26

My previous manager became 64 last March and I sent a special birthday surprise message celebrating his 100 birthday, in octal. I know he doesn't like birthday celebrations and gave him also a bit better age, i.e. 40 in hexadecimal if he would like that more.
We also celebrated the special 64th birthday for my mother in-law already in 1999 and she liked it a lot. She was pretty sure she would never have another bit in her age but she is still around now, in 2021, but not that healthy anymore.

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