Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide

[Marco van de Voort <marcov@stack.nl>]

> > > Understanding a bit about objects is necessary if you want
> > > something like Hello World.
> >
> > No, you can make a perfectly good "Hello World" without objects.
> Dont you need to create a subclass of some obscure Java
> class to even generate a program with a null body ??

I was talking about programming in general.
If you need that for Java, I consider that just another reason to NOT
use Java.
 
> > > The student shouldn't need to handle such technicalities like files
> > > or units and so on.
> >
> > A file is an important generic concept used by most languages (including
> > OOP ones).  The same for units, or modules.
> >
> > Why do you get the idea that they are useless technicalities?
> 
> Because in the beginning of CS1 you don�t really need persistent storage
> of your work. You as a teacher would prefer not getting questions like
> this:

You also don't need to with e.g. Pascal. So that is no argument for
Java.

> Pupil: I'm working with a small a little bit of trigonometry.
>       Why is the system bitching about no cos ?
 
> Teacher: you need to add something like this '-lm'

That is than the problem of one language  (and probably not even all
compilers). Not a reason why all languages except Java are invalid.
 
> What I'm saying is this: a language which is likened by programmer
> professionals isn't implicitly a good way of expression for students
> which
> has started programming for the first time.

Not implicitly no. But you don't have to use all features directly in
the first week. I assume you don't do that for Java and its libraries
either.

-- 

Marco van de Voort (Marcov@stack.nl or marco@freepascal.org)