I believe that it would be a dis-service to any diver not to teach them how to use tables. While conservative they are a foundational principal that all divers should understand to better be aware of what is actually occurring on a dive. Having an understanding of the basic principles and their application only strengthens an individual.
Quick question - what "algorithm" are you talking about. Wondering if you are implying that an instructor covers the basic concepts (hence tables) or the mechanics of the actual algorithm used by the computer. For instance should an instructor be teaching the mechanics of say the Buhlmann, RGBM or Haldanean algorithms? Just wondering as most students tend to struggle with aspects of the Natural Gas laws and now we are talking about teaching advanced math.
Not saying this would not be interesting to cover - just might be a bit too much.
I most certainly didn't mean to imply getting into the details of decompression algorithms. In fact, my comment was based on a notion that a lot of students may not even know what the word "algorithm" means. I believe a student can get a feel for how a computer computes a diver's nitrogen load going up and down without using tables. The student only needs to grasp the concept that a computer continuously updates an estimate of the diver's nitrogen load based on some function (that is, an algorithm) of depth and time. I see no inherent reason why a student who is learning to dive using a computer needs to know that at some point during a simulation or planning exercise the diver is "in Group K" or whatever. For a student to learn to use a dive computer, the student only needs to comprehend some relative scale and how things change relative to that scale in response to depth and time. The scale doesn't have to be those letter groups in a table. The table is a mechanism that distills an analog or continuous function into discrete groups in order to enable easy paper-and-pencil calculations. It seems to me there are other ways to teach the concept than going through pencil-and-paper calculations.
What "basic principles and their application" could a student not learn without dealing with letter groups in a table?
I'm not saying it isn't useful to learn to use tables, especially if one is going to take their education further, but I no longer believe it is necessary for OW students to learn tables in order to competently plan and execute recreational dives with a computer.