From: John English <je@brighton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide
Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 01:38:59 +0100
Date: 2000-09-06T00:34:49+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <39B59223.667C085D@brighton.ac.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: slrn8qndkq.2v02.marcov@toad.stack.nl
Marco van de Voort wrote:
> I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty
> will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary
> course!
Expect some interesting times... examples might include (from a 2nd
year group I taught, having taught Ada as a first language in their
1st year):
1) Is it spelt RuntimeException or RunTimeException? Case sensitivity
is fine as long as you *know* whether the API designers considered
"run time" to be one word or two...
2) Is it "myDate.getMinutes()" or "myDate.getMinute()"? Can I really
be bothered to spend my whole life with my nose in an API reference?
3) Null statements are fun:
while (someCondition);
doSomething();
Shown this on a poor quality hardcopy produced by the student, the
faint smudge at the end of the condition might not be recognised as
a semicolon at first glance... but the compiler is happy to compile
your code without warnings either way...
4) Things like "i = j;" or "if (i == j) ..." have a nasty habit of
surprising students when i and j aren't simple types like ints...
5) All the compilers I use (JDK, Jikes, GJ) have very poor error
reporting
compared to GNAT. The messages can point to anywhere within
half-a-dozen
lines of the real error and tell you something completely misleading
about it.
6) I'd better stop now, hadn't I? :-)
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John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2000-09-06 0:38 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 88+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2000-08-24 0:00 From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide gdemont
2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith
2000-08-24 0:00 ` ODRe: " Richard Riehle
2000-08-29 0:00 ` James Smith
2000-08-30 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Robert Deininger
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Charles Hixson
2000-08-26 0:00 ` steve
2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton
2000-08-28 6:41 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen
2000-08-28 0:00 ` David Botton
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Elmore
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Charles Hixson
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Richard Riehle
2000-08-29 6:53 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Preben Randhol
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Larry Elmore
2000-08-26 0:00 ` Dimmy Timchenko
2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic
2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton
2000-08-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic
2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran
[not found] ` <017801c0105d$06e88ac0$cf18b70a@db2000>
2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier
2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic
2000-09-06 0:18 ` John English
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak
2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers
2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic
2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
2000-08-27 0:00 ` Ronald Cole
2000-08-27 0:00 ` Richard Kenner
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ronald Cole
2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Starner
2000-08-27 0:00 ` Al Christians
2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi
2000-08-29 0:00 ` David Starner
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Charles Hixson
2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott
2000-08-30 0:00 ` Charles Hixson
2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Jonas Maebe
2000-09-06 0:38 ` John English [this message]
2000-09-08 18:41 ` Stefan Skoglund
2000-09-08 19:24 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-09-09 17:50 ` Stefan Skoglund
2000-09-10 16:40 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-09-11 0:59 ` Ken Garlington
2000-09-11 13:01 ` John English
2000-09-11 14:45 ` Ehud Lamm
2000-09-11 19:32 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-09-27 23:03 ` John English
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
2000-08-29 0:00 ` Ehud Lamm
2000-09-06 0:26 ` John English
2000-09-06 16:08 ` Charles Hixson
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Al Christians
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak
2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort
[not found] <01a101c0106f$745c3c70$cf18b70a@db2000>
2000-08-28 0:48 ` tmoran
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