In MA’s blog, he says “Unlike chemistry, where the students have a hard time conceptualizing at the molecular level, CS students have a hard time understanding how the code is executed by the computer.” This struck me as not completely correct. In both chemistry and CS (programming) students are not able to directly observe what is going on down at the most basic, the quantum, level. In both cases what can be observed are the outcomes, in programming by what is visually seen as output, and in chemistry by the characteristics of the products of experiments. In chemistry the technology involved may be an instrument used to measure characteristics, but in programming, the technology is not just the tool to read output, but it is what students are manipulating and what students are creating, all at the same time.
This is not to say the same thought processes are involved in programming as in chemistry, but that there is an analogous relationship between the two. As well, I do not mean to imply a student who excels at one will excel at another, but rather a student who can visualize what is happening at the molecular level is no doing anything different than a student visualizing what is happening inside a compiler
Perhaps this is evidence of science thinking and computer programming being closer linked than we may realize. Math and programming have always been held as being similar, so why not science and programming?
References
Aubanel, M. (2012, Feb ). Pass by value and pass by reference [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://marcaubanel.com/?page_id=373
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