Stanford dumps java as intro language
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Stanford dumps java as intro language
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Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#2I am really curious if this actually makes things better..Maybe I am just getting old..
But this seems like everything else. Let's dumb it down so people can get it. But if you really want to be a programmer, you will get it. You will spend hours debugging and feeling like you know nothing. That is what makes you grow.
On the other hand....I ran into some Senior CS students who were incapable of programming in javascript...so...maybe it is not so bad.
Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#3Javascript, really? Why not Python?
Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#4They could have chosen a thousand better languages for starters like Python or Ruby to mention some useful ones or Scheme for example which has literally no syntax. They chose an abomination instead. Now we'll have even more influx of javascript-only coder hussars who have never seen an ecosystem which is not rotten to the core. Congratulations.
Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#5I went to a completely unranked school, not even a CS major. But took Programming I anyway. It was for freshmen, and was in C++.
IMO, for an intro language, you need either something close to the metal, so that students can work their way up the abstraction chain, or something very high-level with flexible constructs if it's desired to teach things from the algorithmic level.
I also think that any dynamically typed language is a bad choice for a first language. We're all used to holding the types in our heads, but beginning programmers don't even know what they are, and it's a really core construct.
Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#6Javascript, really? Why not Python?
That's a very good question.
Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#7I am really curious if this actually makes things better..Maybe I am just getting old.. But this seems like everything else. Let's dumb it down so people can get it. But if you really want to be a programmer, you will get it. You will spend hours debugging and feeling like you know nothing. That is what makes you grow. On the other hand....I ran into some Senior CS students who were incapable of programming in javasc…
No you are not getting old. This was a horrible decision.
Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#8I am really curious if this actually makes things better..Maybe I am just getting old.. But this seems like everything else. Let's dumb it down so people can get it. But if you really want to be a programmer, you will get it. You will spend hours debugging and feeling like you know nothing. That is what makes you grow. On the other hand....I ran into some Senior CS students who were incapable of programming in javasc…
I read this more as a nod to the fact that Stanford is the feeder school for SV. And pretty much all SV churns out these days is webapps.
Javascript is just a very mediocre language in virtually every way. There is only one thing it's good at, webapps, and it's only good at that by virtue of the fact that it's the only game in town for complicated front-end stuff.
The only thing that could be said in Javascript's favor as a teaching language is that it has basically no standard library, so teaching the entirety of the language can be done quickly.
Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#9I went to a completely unranked school, not even a CS major. But took Programming I anyway. It was for freshmen, and was in C++. IMO, for an intro language, you need either something close to the metal, so that students can work their way up the abstraction chain, or something very high-level with flexible constructs if it's desired to teach things from the algorithmic level. I also think that any dynamically typed l…
I agree. When I first started out I learned java on my own. But when I first started taking college level CS classes it was all C++. And to be honest I prefer it.
Re: Stanford dumps java as intro language
#10I'm sure I'm biased, but I'm a huge fan of how they taught our first two semesters where I went to school. Semester 1 freshman year was imperative programming in C (learning pointers, bits, the stack and heap, memory, ...). Semester 2 was functional programming in SML (learning recursion, types, function composition, formal reasoning, ...).
When it comes to other programming language features, there are few that can't be understood as some combination of imperative and functional features. Introducing them freshman year, students take these lessons with them to every subsequent language they learn.