Computing Curriculum Workshop Wrap-Up
C# has matured for the classroom.
by Ju Long

Tech•Ed, May 24, 2004

The 4th annual "Computing Curriculum Workshop" at Tech•Ed attracted professors from top universities across the country to discuss how to leverage Microsoft technologies to better prepare America's future technology workforce. The consensus of the 200 workshop attendees is that C# and .NET technologies have matured to become a core component in college computing courses of all levels.

Compared with competing technologies, C# and .NET have several advantages. For beginning courses, .NET allows students to get started quickly with the help of the Visual Studio IDE, which includes an excellent visual designer, build environment, and powerful debugging tools. In addition, .NET also provides easy-to-use I/O APIs. Those features enable beginner students to develop functional programs quickly and start lab classes early in the course. That helps students to establish confidence and study interests.

In an advanced language course, instructors can teach advanced object-oriented language features such as overloading with C#. Because the C# language is an open industry standard and Microsoft's compiler source code is available under the shared source initiative, it is ideally suited for teaching compiler concepts. More over, the Mono project is developing an open source C# compiler and Common Language Runtime (CLR) implementation for multiple platforms.

Another focus of the workshop was how to use the Tablet PC in educational environments. For students, the Tablet PC SDK integrates with the Visual Studio IDE to support pen-based mobile computing—a useful skill in the future IT marketplace. For instructors, the Tablet PC makes classroom presentations easier and richer. Table PCs in classroom also increase student activity and interactions.

One of Java's major strengths is the availability of open source tools to support experimental and cutting-edge programming techniques such as test-driven development. The C# and .NET community is quickly catching up in this aspect as well. With tools such as NUnit and new refactoring features in Visual Studio 2005, instructors can teach advanced programming techniques and design patterns in the classroom today.

In addition to application development, other aspects of a modern computing curriculum were also discussed in the workshop, such as database, operating system, security, and even legal issues.

About the Author
Ju Long is a PhD candidate in the department of Management Science and Information Systems at the University of Texas at Austin. She has published extensively in academic and technology journals, such as IEEE IT Professional. She will soon join the CIS department in the McCoy School of Business at Texas State University as an assistant professor. Contact her at julong@mail.utexas.edu.