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Don't Make Students Use Eclipse

nora.codes

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Re: Don't Make Students Use Eclipse

#2

Post by ngngngng »

I completely agree. IDEs obscure the behavior of tools and languages. It's the last thing a student needs. I've been talking for a while about writing a course that teaches programming in 2 or 3 languages side by side to basically so the opposite of this. The specific quirks of languages or the things they obscure with magic melt away when you look at languages side by side. I wish university would teach in this way.

Re: Don't Make Students Use Eclipse

#3

Post by codysc »

ngngngng wrote: post #2

I completely agree. IDEs obscure the behavior of tools and languages. It's the last thing a student needs. I've been talking for a while about writing a course that teaches programming in 2 or 3 languages side by side to basically so the opposite of this. The specific quirks of languages or the things they obscure with magic melt away when you look at languages side by side. I wish university would teach in this way.

I carry this thought process over into my current life. When I start with a new technology/language/etc. I try to start barebones command line, text editor.

I transition quickly into more visual / abstracting tools, but that first foray into the guts really helps ground me with a better understanding of what's actually happening.

Re: Don't Make Students Use Eclipse

#5

Post by dvt »

> ... it insulates the student from the javac command line program, and the command line environment itself

Such a misguided article. The Java language has (quite literally) nothing to do with `javac`. In fact, there's a lot of other compilers out there. Taking a Java class should not focus on the intricacies and weirdness of Java compiler command line interfaces. It seems pretty amateurish to argue in favor of it. Case in point: back in high school, I learned C++ using a Borland compiler (and I haven't touched `bcc` in the 15 years since then, even though I've written plenty of C++ in the meantime).

> ... imports and file naming requirements.

These, again, are (compiler) implementation details and should not be part of a generalized Java curriculum.

> And of course, mathematics is the foundation of computer science.

Stuff like this can be misleading and even though not completely wrong (discrete math, logic, metalogic, mathematical logic are sorta' kinda' similar), it's just wrong enough[1] to lead people astray.

[1] https://www.scott-a-s.com/cs-is-not-math/

Re: Don't Make Students Use Eclipse

#7

Post by [deleted] »

dvt wrote: post #5

> ... it insulates the student from the javac command line program, and the command line environment itself Such a misguided article. The Java language has (quite literally) nothing to do with `javac`. In fact, there's a lot of other compilers out there. Taking a Java class should not focus on the intricacies and weirdness of Java compiler command line interfaces. It seems pretty amateurish to argue in favor of it. C…

[deleted]

Re: Don't Make Students Use Eclipse

#8

Post by stefan_ »

If there is one thing that Eclipse doesn't do is insulate anyone. Half of Java Enterprise development involves various concoctions of Eclipse projects.

I'm not sure what the difference is between a student learning about Eclipse idiosyncrasies or .DS_STORE files. One topic is as pointless as the other.

Re: Don't Make Students Use Eclipse

#10

Post by ericmcer »

I like the idea of starting in a browser. It is a more familiar way to get people used to the concept of text controlling behavior. The jump to compilation and executables might still be difficult, but it’s way better than students on their second year who only know how to run their programs by clicking a green triangle.
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