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ERIC Number: EJ1084448
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2165-3151
EISSN: N/A
A Debate over the Teaching of a Legacy Programming Language in an Information Technology (IT) Program
Ali, Azad; Smith, David
Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice, v13 p111-127 2014
This paper presents a debate between two faculty members regarding the teaching of the legacy programming course (COBOL) in a Computer Science (CS) program. Among the two faculty members, one calls for the continuation of teaching this language and the other calls for replacing it with another modern language. Although CS programs are notorious for continuous updates (and hence debates over the updates) of their courses, but the teaching of COBOL programming language has sparked many debates that have been on-going for years. Each side of the debate provides evidences that support their position. This study, although, provides a debate over the same topic but it is different from ongoing debates because it balances the views expressed by both sides of the debates. This in turn shows the difficulty encountered by various departments when making a decision about COBOL. We are presenting in the paper a thorough literature review regarding both sides of views. We are also incorporating in this debate the lessons we learned from our long experience in this field. Thus, we will present our conclusion and recommendation in this paper based on the literature review and on our experience in this field. Our goal from writing this paper is two faceted: first, to present opinions about each side of the position regarding the teaching of COBOL, and, second, to reach a consensus regarding the continuation of teaching this programming language (or for this matter replacing it with another language).
Informing Science Institute. 131 Brookhill Court, Santa Rosa, CA 95409. Tel: 707-531-4925; Fax: 480-247-5724; e-mail: contactus@informingscience.org; Web site: http://www.informingscience.org/Journals/JITEIIP/Overview
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Pennsylvania
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A