Re: Java

blmblm_at_myrealbox.com
Date: 04/02/04 

Date: 2 Apr 2004 08:08:31 GMT

In article <MPG.1ad684f0afcfbc7f98974e@news.verizon.net>,
Randy Howard <randyhoward@FOOverizonBAR.net> wrote:
>In article <c4i0hd$2ifok2$1@ID-147531.news.uni-berlin.de>, blmblm@myrealbox.com
>says...
>> In article <MPG.1ad3f482a92b387098973f@news.verizon.net>,
>> Randy Howard <randyhoward@FOOverizonBAR.net> wrote:
>>
>> [ snip ]
>>
>> >It's awfully hard to teach how to use pointers, which makes an education
>> >based solely on Java woefully inadequate for the real world.
>>
>> What would you teach people about pointers that can't be taught using
>> Java's references? They seem to me to be adequate for teaching about
>> linked lists and other such dynamic data structures, which would
>> seem to me to be one of the major uses of pointers. You can't do
>> arithmetic with them, true; is that central to something you think
>> is important to teach? is there something else?
>>
>> (Not a flame here, an honest question.)
>
>As soon as I see a production OS built on java and not assembler at the
>lowest levels making calls to firmware functions, and C internals code
>running on top of it, including the device drivers, I'll reconsider.
>
>If you think learning Java teaches you anything about how operating
>systems reside on physical hardware, I think we'll have to agree to
>disagree.

Um. We don't seem to be communicating here. I agree that Java doesn't
seem like a good choice for writing an operating system. I also agree
that a good CS program should teach students some things that might be
difficult or impossible to teach if the only programming language they
know is Java.

What I want to know is what it is *about pointers* that (1) you think
needs to be taught, and (2) can't be taught using Java.

I'm not advocating teaching only Java. I'm not advocating that
students never learn anything they can't learn using Java. (Both of
these strike me as bad ideas, in fact.) I'm just asking why it is
you find Java so inadequate when it comes to teaching *about pointers*
-- not about device drivers, or operating systems, or other stuff that
I think we agree ought to be taught, just about pointers.

Or maybe I misread your original remark, which was that Java is
inadequate for teaching "how to use pointers". Maybe what you meant
was something that includes how to interact with physical hardware,
while I read that phrase to mean how to manipulated linked lists and
similar data structures? If so, then cue a chorus of "never mind!"

And if I can ask another potentially incendiary but well-meant question:
How familiar are you with Java?

>I've had CS graduates in for job interviews in recent years that had
>no idea how anything lower level than the compiler works in a machine,
>and most of them knew nothing about that either in more detail than
>"you use it to compile your program". It's downright pathetic what
>once-respected universities find suitable for a "Computer Science"
>degree today. They'll know a lot of ASPs, HTML, Java, graphics,
>and a host of scripting languages, but very few of them could even
>describe the purpose of an interrupt service routine or how it would
>operate. Ask them to draw a block diagram of a typical computer
>system, their eyes just glaze over. I've even had "how many bits
>are in a byte on the computer sytem you have at home right now" throw
>a few for a loop.

Yipes. That doesn't sound good! In some ways it's tempting to claim
that it hardly matters whether they know how many bits per byte if
they understand basic concepts, have a clue about problem-solving,
and would know how to find out how many bits per byte if they needed
to know, but -- yeah. 

-- 
| B. L. Massingill
| ObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
-- 
-- blm

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