Boffins deride Java: Death of learning

JAVA is killing the ability of students to program properly according to to boffins at the University of Chicago.

In a report with the catchy title Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow? boffins Dr. Robert B.K. Dewar and Dr. Edmond Schonberg claim that Java is the root of all evil.

Part of the reason is that it is so popular in the context of Web applications and because beginners can produce graphical programs with it.

However Schonberg and Dewar said that at New York University Java programming courses were about as useful as a course of leeches when it came to preparing students.

The skill was even less useful when it came to doing the hard stuff.

Students found it hard to write programs that did not have a graphic interface and were insensitive as a paralysed lump of concrete when it came to feeling for the relationship between the source program and what the hardware would actually do.

This made it impossible to teach C, or any other letter of the alphabet, to the kids.

Schonberg and Dewar believe that the kids of today are not interested in seeing the irresistible beauty of some good code. Instead they rummage around in drawers looking for gadgets.

You can read the full spiel here.

Source: www.theinquirer.net