Programming as An Engineering Discipline

Abstract ⎯ For too long computer programming has been treated as an art or a craft rather than as a science or an engineering discipline. The Kernel Language approach provides a precise and concise basis for programming in all paradigms (imperative, logical, functional and object-oriented) as well as for parallel, concurrent and distributed multi-thread programming. The Kernel Language is implemented as a subset of Oz, a powerful, multi-paradigm programming language that is similar to Java. This allows us to apply the theory to enhance the art of practical problem solving. KL allows us to introduce multithread programming and the major programming paradigms in first courses of programming. With the rapidly expanding acceptance of multi-language programming capabilities of dotNET, a revision of traditional introductory programming courses becomes more and more important. Index Terms ⎯ multi-paradigm programming; net-centric programming; programmer’s theory of programming; teaching of multi-paradigm, multi-thread programming