Mike Feldman occasionally mentions the "Reid Report" as one source
for ascertaining PLs' usage in CS1 (the first course for CS majors) in
academia.  The two msgs forwarded below for SIGCSE.Members show 1997's
Reid-Report numbers and explain how his data is obtained (and how you
can input to his counts).

Note that Pascal still holds a commanding lead (28%) with C++ recently
edging Ada (17% to 16%) for second.  But, Pascal is almost definitely
on a downward trend (an 8 point drop from Fall'94 to Fall'96) and the
bubble for Java has not hit yet.  I imagine the next 2 or 3 Reid Reports
will show some changing trends, and it will be interesting to see if
the Ada schools stay with Ada during the Java high, and which language(s)
(Pascal? C++?) suffer the most losses. -- Hal


------- Forwarded Messages

Date:         Tue, 16 Dec 1997 11:37:52 -0500
Reply-To: Bob Noonan <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: SIGCSE Member Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Bob Noonan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: STL in CS2?
To: [log in to unmask]
In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Tue, 16 Dec 1997 10:38:35 EST."
              <[log in to unmask]>

Kim Bruce wrote:

> Now that 2 1/2 years have passed, I believe it is even more obvious that
> this is a bad choice.  While a number of schools did move their intro
> courses to C++ for a while, my understanding is that this shift has now
> stalled (I haven't seen the statistics recently, perhaps someone who has
> them can post them), whereas now many schools are either moving to or
> strongly considering moving to Java.

Below is a summary of the data that Richard Reid "publishes" on
comp.edu on NetNews.  The figures for Pascal have not changed
significantly for the current academic year vs. the previous one.
Discussions at the annual SIGCSE conference indicate that the figures
for Scheme and Ada are over-represented in the survey.  You may draw
your own conclusions.


               Fall94  Fall95  Fall96  Fall97

 Ada            15.6%   16.5%   14.6%   16.3%
 Beta            0.2%    0.2%    0.2%    0.2%
 C               8.7%    8.8%   10.0%    9.9%
 C++             5.0%    7.7%   17.1%   17.4%
 Eiffel          0.2%    0.7%    0.6%    0.6%
 Fortran         2.2%    1.8%    1.8%    1.7%
 Haskel          0.0%    0.2%    0.2%    0.2%
 Haskell         0.0%    0.0%    0.0%    0.2%
 ISETL           0.5%   0.45%    0.4%    0.4%
 Java            0.0%    0.0%    0.0%    0.6%
 ML              0.0%    0.2%    0.4%    0.4%
 Miranda         0.7%    0.9%    0.8%    0.8%
 Modula          9.7%    7.9%    6.3%    6.1%
 Modula-2        2.7%    2.9%    3.0%    2.9%
 Modula-3        0.5%   0.45%    0.4%    0.4%
 Oberon          0.2%   0.45%    0.4%    0.4%
 Oberon-2        0.0%    0.0%    0.2%    0.2%
 ObjPascal       0.2%    0.2%    0.4%    0.4%
 Orwell          0.2%    0.2%    0.2%    0.2%
 Pascal         37.6%   35.5%   29.7%   28.1%
 Prolog          0.2%    0.2%    0.2%    0.2%
 SML             1.2%   1.35%    1.2%    1.3%
 Scheme         12.1%   11.3%   10.0%    9.4%
 Simula          0.2%    0.2%    0.2%    0.2%
 Smalltalk       0.2%    0.2%    0.8%    0.8%
 Turing          1.5%   1.35%    1.0%    1.0%

TOTALS            404     442     508     523


Enjoy,

Bob Noonan
- ----------

Robert Noonan
Dept. of Computer Science
College of William and Mary


------- Message 2

Date:         Tue, 16 Dec 1997 14:54:26 -0500
Reply-To: Bob Noonan <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: SIGCSE Member Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Bob Noonan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: AP CS exam
To: [log in to unmask]

Bob Noonan wrote:

> Below is a summary of the data that Richard Reid "publishes" on
> comp.edu on NetNews.  The figures for Pascal have not changed
> significantly for the current academic year vs. the previous one.
> Discussions at the annual SIGCSE conference indicate that the figures
> for Scheme and Ada are over-represented in the survey.  You may draw
> your own conclusions.

Several people sent messages to me privately with questions about the
data that I posted.  To quote from the preamble to Prof. Reid's
survey results:

        17th edition 10-15-97, (16th Ed. was 4-11-97)
        of the list of the languages used in the FIRST course for
        Computer Science majors at Colleges and Universities that
        have sent in their listing.  The course is often referred
        to as CS1.

        This file is available via ftp:

          ftp.cps.msu.edu:pub/arch/CS1_Language_List.Z

        The first edition was May 1990.  New editions come
        out about every six months.  I don't keep past editions.

        Please send me via e-mail any CORRECTIONS or ADDITIONS
        if you have FIRST-HAND, CURRENT knowledge--you're
        THERE NOW, and your e-mail address SHOWS it.

        It is no longer feasible to accept, or pursue the correctness
        of, rumors and hearsay about languages currently in use at
        sites other than your own, sorry.

        Please help me get your entry right by answering:

        What language(s) is(are) used in the FIRST course the MAJORITY
        of your Computer Science majors take as their FIRST CS course
        at your College or University?  Be sure you have the name of
        your College or University included.

It should be clear from this that the survey data represents the
language used in CS1.  This is VERY different both from the language
used in (say) upper division courses.

For those that want their school included in future editions of the
survey, Prof. Reid's e-mail address is:

        [log in to unmask]


Bob Noonan

- --
Robert Noonan                      (757) 221-3465
Computer Science                   Fax: (757) 221-1773
College of William and Mary        http://www.cs.wm.edu/~noonan/
PO Box 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795

------- End of Forwarded Messages