Timeline for How important is learning Binary for first-year college students?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
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| Jul 24, 2017 at 22:21 | comment | added | Wildcard | @corsiKa, does that mean we should pander to that lowest common denominator in our teaching and not even attempt to relay any deep understanding? Interesting view. Doesn't seem to belong on CS Educators SE, though. It reminds me of the fantasy novel The Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones, which examines the aftereffects of such an approach to teaching magic. (A great read, BTW.) :) | |
| Jun 24, 2017 at 20:28 | comment | added | user1129682 | You didn't stress this enough: Learning binary is the most important thing a first-year can learn! Living in a mostly decimal world working with binary numbers is the best way to learn about models, transformation and data representation as such. Even though it's never explicitly communicated this way. | |
| Jun 24, 2017 at 17:00 | comment | added | corsiKa | Most students taking a computer science degree have zero intention of being a computer scientist. 95+% of them are going to be maintaining poorly written internal apps for some big company. | |
| Jun 23, 2017 at 17:20 | vote | accept | Alfred Thompson | ||
| Jun 23, 2017 at 16:47 | comment | added | user428517 | how do you know OP is teaching computer scientists? It could just be an introductory programming course, in which case I would not expect binary to be taught. It's absolutely not required. | |
| Jun 23, 2017 at 13:36 | comment | added | Chris Schneider |
Boolean can be understood quite easily without understanding binary or even knowing it exists. True and false are real world concepts not exclusive to CS and kids learn about > < == in 2nd or 3rd grade. I mean, that is still binary, just not taught as a CS concept.
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| Jun 23, 2017 at 13:24 | comment | added | Wildcard | @ChrisSchneider I'm trying to think of a single CS concept that isn't rooted in or directly related to discrete elements, Boolean logic or binary. What would you teach of CS to students who didn't know these things? I'm really wondering. | |
| Jun 23, 2017 at 13:14 | comment | added | Chris Schneider | I feel like the tone here says students will be completely lost without understanding binary, which is hyperbole. It's a pretty easy thing to learn at any point. But I do agree that it's much easier to understand later CS concepts with a good grasp on binary. I recall several projects in C that would have been much easier if I understood bits and bitwise operators and how to use them. | |
| Jun 23, 2017 at 4:08 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 23, 2017 at 5:30 | |||||
| Jun 23, 2017 at 3:57 | history | answered | Wildcard | CC BY-SA 3.0 |