[PLUG] Need LiveCD for Students to learn C

[Rahul Sundaram]

Pranav Peshwe wrote:

> 
> Digressing a bit - how about _not_ allowing an IDE at all ? IMHO, using a
> console based editor is an important and essential skill when operating *nix
> kind of OSes. Also, using IDEs right from the beginning will keep the
> student in dark about what goes into compiling and debugging a program. And
> even more important - the student might develop a feeling that,
> compiling/debugging without the IDE is something very difficult and involved
> (which is not at all the case). I realized this after talking to some engg.
> students who had never used the command line to compile their programs. The
> downside of not using an IDE will be - the instructor/supervisor might have
> to answer more queries about the development process rather than the code
> written :-s
> 
> My 2 cents...
> Comments welcome.

IDE's are good for saving time. If you teaching just the language as 
opposed to all of the development process, starting out a IDE can help 
students focus on what they need to learn. If the language has a sharp 
leaving curve, a IDE acts as a buffer. You can also teach the 
alternative methods including how to do it on the command line in the 
process later on. A number of languages have a lot of boiler plate code 
and long strings where it is completely inefficient to work on them 
without a IDE atleast during real development. On example would be Java 
and Eclipse.

Rahul