Intro To Java

[nemorathwald]

I walked into the first class of Intro To Java and it was totally quiet. I sat down and the guy behind me asked me, "Hey, why do people learn Java?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, why are you taking it?"

"To learn programming. It was that or take C++. Then I'll teach myself Ruby and Python."

"So, like Javascript? Javascript is a subset of Java?"

"No, they really shouldn't have named them alike."

"But Javascript's embedded in all the browsers."

"Yeah, it's like a monopoly so we have to put up with it."

"But Java ... what do people choose Java for?"

"The answer to that depends on as opposed to what."

"Like, what is Java good for?"

"The corporate world developed it so they trust it. Also it runs on different hardware platforms."

Now it has gone back to complete silence. The teacher hasn't started, so I'm blogging.

Comments

[fiat-knox.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

I interpret that to mean you think this is some kind of bad sign of something.

[fiat-knox.livejournal.com]

I've encountered people like that before, when I was reading for my computing degree.

If they ask "How do you XYZ," don't tell them anything original. Point them to whatever textbooks you're using as your set text.

If you teach them anything original of your own, they'll only go off and poach it for themselves.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

What on earth are you talking about? He wasn't asking me to teach him class material. It isn't a class about why to use Java, or the business or legal contexts. It was the first day of class and the teacher wasn't even there yet, and he was having a discussion that framed the purpose. Secondly, what on earth do you mean by poaching? How could knowledge be "of my own" in this context? I'm lost.

[fiat-knox.livejournal.com]

The circumstance to which I refer was a personal experience as a student in cllege, where I was reading for my degree.

I was always being asked by my fellow students how to program certain elements they could not understand, such as stacks, queues, or how to set up functions in Visual Basic to translate between string and integer inputs.

Even in my final year, my contemporaries were still asking me how to insert graphics into MS Word documents - something they should have been able to master from Year One, because that was when they were taught the basics.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

I'll be on the alert for that. However, my philosophy is, the best way for me to learn something is to teach it.

[temujin9.livejournal.com]

A lot of corporate middleware is built in Java, which means that its major frameworks are heavily developed and tested, and support much more heavy-duty coding (in terms of architectural levers to use) than some of the newer, hacker-built languages can. As your classmate implies, it's usually treated as an enterprise language (clunky and slow, but trustworthy and experienced) rather than a hacker one (young and inexperienced, but smart and agile).