linuxaudio.org

Excerpts from R. Mattes's message of 2010-10-14 22:35:56 +0200:

quoted text
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:10:52 +0200, Philipp Überbacher wrote

> >

> > I'm not experienced in any language but I've dabbled with a few, and

> > imho java and how it's taught here is far too complicated or rather

> > distracting.

> >

> > The first thing newbies see, before hello world, is a beast like

> > eclipse, which alone causes a whole bunch of problems. Then they have

> > to mess with packages, and classes, and objects, although they teach

> > it here by saying "take this as given, ignore it for now". The next thing

> > they see are some funky classes that allow proper input/output

> > because java doesn't seem to have that. Only then they get to start programing

> > and can deal with javas built in funkyness.

>

> But that's not the language, that's the quality of the people teaching it

> there.

Using eclipse from the start might be a questionable choice, but for the

rest there's no best answer. Either take the 'take it as a given'

approach or start with explaining objects and classes and and and...
About half of my fellow students are total beginners who've never

written or even read a single line of code. To them everything is new,

and they need to filter the essentials from the distractions, so less

distractions is a real help.
> > What does the following example evaluate to?

quoted text
> >    1.2+3+"||"+3+2.1

>

> $ cat > Foo.ava

> class Foo

> {

>   static { System.out.println( 1.2+3+"||"+3+2.1 ); System.exit( 0 ); }

> }

> ^D

> $ javac Foo.java

> $ java Foo

>

> C'm on, that's not really that hard, no Eclipse, no packages, no real object.

Is this using some implicit main() or something?
> > I think there's far too much distracting mess to sort out before you

quoted text
> > even get to programing, so I don't think it's a good teaching language

> > (for total beginners at least).

>

> What's distracting here?

>

> Regarding your example -my main question would be: what do _you_ expect from that

> code. 'I'd say you get what you ask for.

I wouldn't expect 4.2||32.1 as a result. Either interpret the whole

thing as a string, or the number parts as float or don't do this kind of

automagic conversion at all. Interpreting numbers as numbers and

interpreting numbers as string in the same statement is something I

wouldn't expect.
> Java has a defined evaluation order (JLS 15.7) - left to right, and does type

quoted text
> conversion

> _and_ does overloading of methods. All of this are basic design decisions

> which any language

> has to take. Are you criticising the choices the Java team made? Do you prefer

> the Ocaml way?

> So "1 + 2", or "3.0 +. 2.1"  - and then the horrible "add_int_to_float 1 +

> 2.0" ????

> That for shure will be less confusing to beginners :-/

I don't know Ocaml, so no idea what the above means.
> BTW,

quoted text
>

> 1]   1.2 + 3 = 4.2  since you can't convert a float to an int but an int to a

> float

>

> 2]   4.2 + "||"     need to convert 4.2 to a string, because the other way

> round isn't supported

>

> 3]   ... go on ...

>

>

> Cheers, RalfD

>

> P.S.: if possible i try to avoid programming in Java, but for totally

> different reasons.

Which are?
Regards,

Philipp
_______________________________________________

Linux-audio-user mailing list

Linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org

http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user