[Tutor] ool

[Deirdre Saoirse]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, D-Man wrote:

> | I don't like Java, but mostly because it's a language designed for
> | beginners (ostensibly) that doesn't really seem to encourage good
> | programming practices.
>
> I didn't think Java was really designed (s/designed/suited/) for
> beginners.  I think a 'beginner' language wouldn't make the beginner
> learn how to deal with exceptions to do IO.

Oh, I agree -- but it's being touted as though it was.

Other examples: try "hello world" as standardly taught in Java.

> I have a friend who recently started studying CS in college.  He has a
> bad professor (or so he describes) who is teaching java and awt.
> This is a beginning course.  According to my friend they haven't
> learned a whole lot and always struggle through the projects.  The
> only thing he really knows about exceptions is that putting "throws
> Exception" on the end of 'main' will let the prog compile and run.

::snort:: That's really useful.

I really think my older statement really was spot-on: "Java is Cobol 2.0."

> There are a few conveniences Java has over C++, but I don't see a huge
> advantage; especially not compared to python.

I agree, which is why I use Python.

The biggest advantage Java seems to have over C++ is database access and
multilanguage support (esp. 2-byte characters). The downside is that JVMs
are, on average, as stable as the high elements of the periodic table. Not
to mention the arguing over GUI libraries and so on.

Which means that Java is uniquely suited for cron and batch jobs that
access databases -- which is pretty much what Cobol has been historically
used for.

--
_Deirdre   NEW Stash-o-Matic: http://fuzzyorange.com  http://deirdre.net
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
                                                         - Douglas Adams