HMN 001D CS 001: Sapir-Whorf and Programming Languages, Fall 2005

A new class for Fall 2005 that will explore the influence of programming languages on problem solving and program design. It will be a small, discussion-based, student-led, highly interactive course where students shape their own education. The course is part of the new DemTex program at the University of Texas.

DemTex is Democratic Education at Texas — a new program at UT for democratic, egalitarian education. In it, students design, organize, and lead their own courses. Each course for Fall 2005 is listed under the Humanities department as HMN 001D.

If democratic, egalitarian education interests you but this course doesn't, check out the other DemTex courses for Fall 2005.

Students should stay involved in the course throughout the semester, but a zero-hour, ungraded course that demands too much of a student will quickly fall off their priority list. The conventional ratio for out-of-class to in-class work is 2:1, and this course meets one hour per week, so students are expected to work 2 hours each week outside of class, on average. The goal of the course is to be interesting, fun, and fruitful; we can't fit all of that in just one hour a week, so we require a little outside work, too. Most assignments will be readings relevant to the upcoming discussion, and some might require a small amount of programming. Each student is expected to lead a discussion, and preparing for this will take extra time. Thus, weeks when the student leads a dicussion will require more than 2 hours of outside work, and to maintain balance, other weeks should require less than 2 hours.

For more information, email Daniel Brown at danb@cs.utexas.edu. (Or visit my website.) Questions, comments, ideas, etc. are encouraged.