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 The Perils of Java Schools
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McKenzie




PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:16 pm   Post subject: Re: The Perils of Java Schools

Hey, no one mentioned Turing. Turing has pointers too Wink
I think you can learn pointers reasonably well with Java. It's actually one my biggest problems with Java though. Although when you read/hear about Java you read that Java doesn't have pointers. Once you get your feet wet you realize, of course it does, all references are pointers, you just can't play with them. The idea, of course, is that they operate "under the hood" and you don't need to worry about them. My problem is that this is "Leaky Abstaction." There are a number of very fundamental things in Java that you need to understand how pointers operate under the hood. This all gets back to one of the most common educational CS debates: What the best way to learn CS? "Objects First" or does your knowledge mimic the evolution of programming languages in general? I've heard passionate arguments on both sides of the fence. I'm not convinced that there is a clear-cut victor on either side.
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ericfourfour




PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 2:59 pm   Post subject: RE:The Perils of Java Schools

Although, pointers and recursion are important for efficiency and what-not, why should an employer care if they are not needed to write a program? This person talks about OSs and compilers, but how many people are being paid to program those, compared to where pointers and recursion are not needed.

Also, if the language can take care of the memory for you and make life easier, isn't that good? That way you can worry about the task at hand rather than if you are freeing the right memory at the right time.

Its good to know all of the concepts this person writes about (and more), but society, in general, doesn't believe they are necessary to survive. That is why they are being phased out of colleges and the workplace.
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