On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 10:16:08AM -0500, Gary Baluha wrote: > I think that's one of the main problems with programmers today. All the > schools I know that teach programming, start by teaching Java to the > students. I'm learning Java at school. I told my teachers that I think it is a great pity that I've to learn Java while all my favorite software is written in C and and have the code of it! I really would be more motivated when we would learn C. But well, I do understand they want us to learn a object oriented programming language. And that is -far- more practical to use a single PL for all students.
> It's definitely easier to learn Java with little-to-no prior > programming experience, than it is to learn C (I struggled for quite some > time to fully understand and realize how C uses pointers, in all its various > ways). Oh, I was thinking that C just might be easier since I don't have all that class/method/method-call shit. But C has it's own difficulties ofcourse. > I think the problem comes when these same programmers see that Java > and C have a similar style of syntax, and think that simply learning the > superficial differences means they now understand the language. Two > programming languages can look similar on the surface, but be very different > beneath the skin. Sounds like stupid programmers. > I'm also not sold on the concept of object oriented programming in general. > Along the lines of "nothing is impossible with enough layers of > indirection", I think too much abstraction also removes the programmer from > what he/she is actually doing. OOP is a nice concept on paper, until you > realize that most large programming projects are not written by a single > person, and most people will not be coding the entire tree of abstraction > they are using. This leads to errors that may be very difficult (if not > impossible) to fully track down. The (a) 'purpose' of OOP is that I don't need to study the Class-code of someone else. This makes it possible to focus on your own thing only. (I don't care about being exactly right here, I think you understand what I mean) Pieter Verberne
