Java > Scala

[Walter Bright]

On 12/19/2011 11:42 PM, Russel Winder wrote:
> I think this might be more true of native code languages than virtual
> machine languages.  Java programmers generally don't know the bytecodes,
> Python programmers generally don't know the bytecodes, Ruby programmers
> generally don't know the bytecodes (Ruby 1.8 may have been interpreted,
> but 1.9 is a bytecode bases system).

I don't mean knowing the bytecode. Knowing assembler means you develop a feel 
for what has to happen at the machine level for various constructs. Knowing 
bytecode doesn't help with that.


> The problem was that all too often the staff teaching the courses didn't
> really know what they were talking about :-((

I learned programming from my peers in college who took pity on my ignorance and 
kindly helped out. I remember Larry Zwick, who said "good gawd, don't you know 
what tables are?" after looking at some coding horror listing of mine. I said 
"whut's dat?" and he proceeded to teach me table-driven state machines on the spot.

I remember learning OOP (though I didn't learn the term for it until years 
later) by reading through the listing for the ADVENT game, and there was the 
comment "a troll is a modified dwarf". It was one of those lightbulb moments.