Computer science education in developing countries

Abstract

The December, 1977 issue of the Communications of the ACM, in the Forum section, describes a situation in North Africa and the Middle East where a programmer must have command of the English language besides programming skills. That situation appears to hold for all developing nations. But this necessity, created because software is based on the English language, may have these disadvantages:1) Programming is problem solving and forcing a programmer to think in a language that is not native to him, in which he does not think fluently, creates another obstacle to good programming.2) The number of available technicians are seriously limited to those individuals in a developing country who speak English or at least enough of that language to qualify for a position. A large number of “people” resources are disqualified in this way. The panel will address itself to these two assertions. Sufficient time will be given as well for audience participation. Especially welcome will be information concerning the actual use of programming languages which are not based on English grammar and vocabulary. © 1978, ACM. All rights reserved.