Last time we talked about the intent of APCS-A and without deciding on that we can't really chose a language. Still, we can talk about strengths and weaknesses of languages. Let's do that by taking a walk down history. APCS started in Pascal. Back then it was a one year course that included CS1 (programming) and CS2 (data structures). Later they offered two exams A (programming) and AB (programming plus data structures).

One of the first sessions of SIGCSE2022 was a panel on the choice of language for APCS-A. Should it continue to use Java or should it shift to Python. This topic comes up from time to time. I didn't attend this particular session but discussed it at length with a few people who did. Truth be told, I wasn't going to start writing about SIGCSE and APCS-A until I finished a few other SIGCSE posts but my friend Alfred Thompson said he was writing one and was planning on posting it soon.

Before diving into the content I thought I'd share my thoughts about SIGCSE as a hybrid conference. Prior to Covid, SIGCSE was pushing 2,000 in person participants. This time around ther were a little under 800 in person and a number of hundreds more remote. The in person numbers mirrored what CSTA has grown to. It's a nice size. Not overwhelming but manageable. It's at the upper edge of possibly feeling intimate.

It's that time of the year to write a series of blog posts about SIGCSE. I thought I'd start with one on the keynotes. There were four keynote speakers. Marie desJardins, Gloria Townsend, Mark Guzdial, and Blair Taylor. I wasn't at the first timer's lunch where Townsend spoke so I won't talk at all about that keynote. I'm also not going to summarize the talks. Andy Ko wrote up a terrific summary of his SIGCSE experience and did a much better job giving overviews to the keynotes than I ever could so I'll just refer you to Andy's blog post.