StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Durandal wrote:I got into a little discussion with one of my hardware and architecture professor today, and we got to talking about the programming courses that students take at the school. Up until last semester, we started students off in C++. There is a two-course sequence designed to introduce them to programming.

Now, those courses have moved over to Java; I'm taking the last C++ section of the second course to be offered. I told her that I thought this was a bad idea, mainly because after getting out of those two courses, the students wouldn't be familiar with memory. A language like C/C++ provides lower-level memory access, so you have to develop good programming habits, like freeing your objects after using them. All this is done automatically in Java since it has its own garbage collector. Java does a lot of things for free since it's a higher-level language.

My gripe is that by starting programmers out with such a language, you get them used to the idea that they get all these wonderful things for free. Then when they run into a language where they actually don't, they have to pick those habits up. By not developing those good programming habits initially, I argued, you create drones instead of actual programmers. They're drones who just kind of see programming as scripting some events, with no real understanding of what's happening behind the scenes.

Also, my school's computer science program, at least at the point I'm at, really seems to be in love with Microsoft. All our programming projects must be submitted as VisualStudio projects, and I get the feeling that these kids think that VisualStudio == Programming. Even in my C++ class, it seems like I'm the only one who actually makes an effort to understand things. Coincidentally, I'm the only person in the class who uses an IDE other than VisualStudio. I was the only person in the whole damned class who could explain what the #ifndef/#define/#endif directives actually are, what they did and why they were necessary for class headers, and those were things that we were supposed to have learned in the first-level course!

So my question is this. Is this a growing trend across the nation? Are more and more schools getting swept up in this "C++ is so, like, yesterday" wave? Are more schools teaching students platform-specific ways of programming (as in VisualStudio == C++)? Are more schools teaching programming more as a "Just do this and you'll be okay" kind of field, where no understanding is required as to why you need to do this?

GoldenFalcon wrote:Luckily my programming course this year entails C++. Hmph, take that Java~!

Though I won't be able to make those elite website thingamajigs, but oh well.

Durandal wrote:Is this a growing trend across the nation?

Stravo wrote:Ah...how fondly I remember my Computer programming course in Elementary School:

10 PRINT HELLO
20 GOTO 10
RUN

God only knows what it must be like now.

Stravo wrote:Ah...how fondly I remember my Computer programming course in Elementary School:

10 PRINT HELLO
20 GOTO 10
RUN

God only knows what it must be like now.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
    int i = 0;
    
    while( i == 0 )
        cout << "Hello.\n";
    
    return 0;
}

Miles Teg wrote:Java is a good language to introduce students to programing with, for the same reason you say it's bad. It allows the student to learn the fundamental concepts of OO software engineering without having to deal with all the crap in a language such as C++ that is *not* a software engineering concept, but rather a feature of the language. By this I am speaking of things like pointers and overloading, that while a useful tool, are a language feature and can easily get in the way of someone's understanding of the core concepts.

Durandal wrote:I was the only person in the whole damned class who could explain what the #ifndef/#define/#endif directives actually are, what they did and why they were necessary for class headers, and those were things that we were supposed to have learned in the first-level course!

Durandal wrote:

Code: Select all

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main ()
{
    int i = 0;
    
    while( i == 0 )
        cout << "Hello.\n";
    
    return 0;
}

Pu-239 wrote:C++ USING HERETIC- THIS IS THE TRUE WAY:

Code: Select all

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdbool.h> //yes, you can not include this ans just use 1 or 0
					 //for true/false but I like it this way

int main(void){
	while(true){
		puts("Hello.");
	}
	exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

Oh, and btw you are forgetting your void in

Code: Select all

int void()

in between the parentheses. Not having it signifies you can pass anything in as a parameter which forgoes type checking (try it).

Drooling Iguana wrote:Why use puts() instead of printf()?