is why not have one big project that gets built up so that students learn how to break it into modules and build piecemeal. Then, at the end, create the GUI to accompany it. All the assignments I was ever given were rather pointless, like score a bowling game or play a game of blackjack. Why bother? They've already been done and with GUIs.
If you can develop a meaningful assignment that teaches the theories, that's fantastic. However, all the students taking the classes with me pulled all nighters for every assignment. The code was crap and so was the functionality, but we didn't care because it wasn't going to be reused. If you had to use that code next week, you might be a bit more concerned about it.
The weirdest part about my whole program, which I discarded by the way, to finish my degree in English, was that the only language that I could grok (at the time) was Assembly. Drove my friend insane. He could do amazing things with c, c++, vb, scheme, you name it. But he hated Assembly. I even forget what that assignment was now, adding binary integers I suspect. Which, since the later homeworks had us doing that, it was great. ;)
J |
