Java > Scala

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday, December 18, 2011 06:17:22 Russel Winder wrote:
> The problem here is that educators forgot the importance of learning
> multiple languages and especially multiple paradigms. Java was used for
> all teaching and students suffered. If they had used Java and Haskell
> and Prolog things would be much better.

In my experience, it's fairly common for there to be _one_ required class 
which is intended to teach about other paradigms - primarily functional 
languages - so I think that it's fairly typical for students to be exposed to 
such languages, but given how foreign they are, I think that the typical 
reaction is that the students don't want to touch such languages again unless 
they have to.

C (and maybe C++) stand a good chance of being used for classes like those on 
networking and operating systems, so a fair number of students will have some 
exposure to those, but I think that their typical reaction is to dislike those 
languages and avoid them unless they have to use them (though I think that 
they're more to use them than a functional language). Naturally, every student 
is unique, but most of them seem to prefer what they know best - and that's 
Java.

For most classes though, the focus is on the concepts not the language, which 
on the whole is exactly where it should be. Any halfway decent programmer 
should be able to learn a new language, and the concepts of computer science 
apply to all of them. So, on the whole, that approach is a solid one IMHO. The 
problem is that it does lead to programmers who are versed primarily in one 
language rather than being familiar with several, unless they the initiatize 
and learn them on their own.

- Jonathan M Davis