On the making of a girl nerd
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On the making of a girl nerd
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Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#2Anyone even considering teaching Java as a first language to high school students should be given a good sound slap - and I say this as a Java dev.
Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#3Anyone even considering teaching Java as a first language to high school students should be given a good sound slap - and I say this as a Java dev.
Its better than C++ at least, which I learned in High School.
Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#4Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#5Anyone even considering teaching Java as a first language to high school students should be given a good sound slap - and I say this as a Java dev.
My freshman and sophomore years, I was taught Java... the rest of undergrad and grad, I was living in a world of C and Matlab. I have no idea why it was taught in that order, and I think they're in the process of fixing it, but I remember my first C course when we started doing pointer arithmetic... quite the experience!
Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#6Anyone even considering teaching Java as a first language to high school students should be given a good sound slap - and I say this as a Java dev.
Its better than C++ at least, which I learned in High School.
You can do just fine with C++. Or Java. I have taught new programmers using both. I think you can do better with Python, because there's less initial friction. I'd rather not have to tell students to ignore "public static void main" because there are several concepts in that phrase alone that I'd rather they not worry themselves with. I want them to focus on developing the ability to think algorithmically.
But, as I said, you can still do this just fine in C++ or Java. I think that people tend to place way too much importance on the first language we teach students. What matters far more is the quality of the teaching itself, and the relevance and logical progression of the projects the students have to solve.
Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#7Anyone even considering teaching Java as a first language to high school students should be given a good sound slap - and I say this as a Java dev.
Why? What is so bad about Java that it makes learning it so bad as a first language or as a introduction to programming?
Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#8I have to agree completely: math and science just hasn't been cool and it's ostracized not just girls but I bet a hell of a lot of boys as well. I dropped out of my extracurricular science/computer classes as a teenager to maintain my social reputation, and I know I'm missing huge pieces of knowledge because of this.
What's changed? Well, computers are pretty cool now. The high school I mentor at has the hippest computer class I've ever seen, the teacher is an enthusiastic woman who drives the energy of the class and lets them focus on what interests them while directing them towards genuine learning towards what should be amazing careers for all of them. It's seriously encouraging and I have high hopes for a better gender balance in the years to come.
Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#9Anyone even considering teaching Java as a first language to high school students should be given a good sound slap - and I say this as a Java dev.
Why? What is so bad about Java that it makes learning it so bad as a first language or as a introduction to programming?
Because the hello world program has so much boilerplate. It means from the get-go you're telling students, "Don't worry about this, and this, and that; ignore it and we'll explain it later." You could go months into learning programming before you need to understand what a static method is, but it's right there in your first program.
Re: On the making of a girl nerd
#10Anyone even considering teaching Java as a first language to high school students should be given a good sound slap - and I say this as a Java dev.
The College Board Advanced Placement exam for Computer Science has used Java for several years now.
See http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap-c...
I'm not saying that's a good idea, just that the practice is fairly common. I think they're nuts.