On 01/12/10 12:03, Simon Huggins wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 11:16:28AM +0000, Chris Wareham wrote:
>> On 01/12/10 10:43, Simon Huggins wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 10:31:00AM +0000, Chris Wareham wrote:
>>>> The cost of employing competent C or C++ coders and giving them enough
>>>> time to develop something robust and efficient is highly unlikely to
>>>> be cheaper than going for a Java solution.
>>> This is because Java solutions never involve competent coders right?
>>> Because everyone bought into the whole idea that anyone can write java.
>> Of course they involve competent coders, however in my experience the
>> pool of competent Java coders is much larger than that of C or C++
>> ones. Many university courses use Java as their primary choice of
>> language, often to the exclusion of any language that involves the
>> explicit use of pointers or memory management. While it helps to
>> understand what's going on under the hood, many of the Java programmers
>> I've worked with pick this up as they become more experienced.
>
> Memory management (and garbage collection) is my main bone of contention
> with the developers I work with. I don't think teaching a language
> that appears not to require you to think about such things is a good
> thing.
>
> But you're right that good programmers (in whatever language) care about
> the resources their code uses and know not to blindly trust that just
> because a project's website says the library will behave in such a way
> that it will and so on.
>
I agree. I'd argue that a good degree course aiming to teach
programming as a profession should start with C. It should also include
enough about assembly language programming that it imparts an
understanding of how a computer works at the processor instruction
level. Once the fundamentals are understood, then it's time to move onto
something higher level like Java. While teaching Java, it's a good
opportunity to learn the trade offs of garbage collection versus manual
memory management in a language like C - such information is both
technically interesting and of practical use.
I never did a degree in anything computer related, so I'd assumed this
was what such a course would entail - but having interviewed many
graduates I find it isn't. I did start an evening course to get a HNC
(or HND, can't remember which) in the mid 1990s, and that included
modules on hardware and assembly language programming. The first year
language was C, and the second year would have moved onto C++. Perhaps
the technical college I attended was lucky in that the lecturers were
mostly part timers who also worked in industry.
Chris
--
Chris Wareham
Senior Software Engineer
Visit London Ltd
6th floor,
2 More London Riverside
London SE1 2RR
Tel: +44 (0)20 7234 5848
Fax: +44 (0)20 7234 5753
http://www.visitlondon.com/
Back England’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup and London as a Candidate Host City. Visit
http://www.england2018bid.com/ or Text ‘England’ to 62018
'Visit London Limited' is registered in England under No.761149;
Registered Office: Visit London, 2 More London Riverside, London SE1 2RR.
Visit London is the official visitor organisation for London. Visit London is partly funded by Partnership, the Mayor's London Development Agency and London Councils.
The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and then delete the message. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose, copy or distribute this email. The views expressed in this e-mail are those of the individual and not of Visit London. We reserve the right to read and monitor any email or attachment entering or leaving our systems without prior notice.
Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.
(text/plain)