Re: Java

blmblm_at_myrealbox.com
Date: 04/06/04 

Date: 6 Apr 2004 18:19:17 GMT

In article <40718CA6.51F644BD@Sonnack.com>,
Programmer Dude <Chris@Sonnack.com> wrote:
>blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:
>
>> That's not at all what I usually think when I read/hear "pointer".
>> Perhaps I have spent too much time in the last few years teaching
>> students to write linked lists and similar data structures in, um,
>> Java ...
>
>Q: Do you call them "pointers" or "references"?
>
>I tend to reserve "pointer" for the data type where the (accessible!)
>value is a memory location. I reserve "reference" for when the
>data type is opaque and NOT accessible.

That sounds to me like a reasonable distinction.

With regard to the things in Java, what I call them is likely to
depend on context. If I'm trying to be precise in my terminology,
I call them references. But if I'm talking to students who are
trying to make the transition from C or C++ to Java, I either call
them references and add a parenthetical "think of them as cleaned-up
pointers" or just call them pointers.

I started to say "and I don't really have occasion very often to talk
about what you call pointers", but that's not exactly right -- I do
have occasion to talk about memory addresses (in the context of
assembly-language-level programming, with students who started in
C/C++), and there too it seems to be helpful to say "like pointers". 

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

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Interesting article by Joel Spolsky: The Perils of JavaSchools
    ... What matters is that Lisp teaches students to use ... recursion, because they have to. ... Java does NOT teach students to use ... pointers and recursion, she'll be able to understand anything, and get ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Delphi 8 vs Visual Studio
    ... They chose the languages from the teaching point (a Lisp ... You can teach many things with Java and C#, ... > Ask the students which language/tools they would want to learn. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: why teach about compilers, was Java compiler courses
    ... I would give the students a complete working implementation and ask ... engineering students, an appropriate compiler oriented subject would ... Java) and deal with an even more restricted set of source languages, ...
    (comp.compilers)
  • [OT] University (was: Q of all time?)
    ... > Over the next three years they crippled our minds with Java. ... the invigilators are even thicker than the lecturers, ... The students are the kind of imbeciles you'd ... MBAs) and Linux in the labs. ...
    (comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc)
  • [OT] University (was: Q of all time?)
    ... > Over the next three years they crippled our minds with Java. ... the invigilators are even thicker than the lecturers, ... The students are the kind of imbeciles you'd ... MBAs) and Linux in the labs. ...
    (comp.unix.aix)