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On Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:13:05 +0200, Philipp Überbacher wrote

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>

> Using eclipse from the start might be a questionable choice, but for

> the rest there's no best answer. Either take the 'take it as a

> given' approach or start with explaining objects and classes and and

> and...

But what's the teaching goal? Packages /what's in a name), classes (how

do we model the real world?) et al. are programming fundamentals.
> About half of my fellow students are total beginners who've never

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> written or even read a single line of code. To them everything is

> new, and they need to filter the essentials from the distractions,

> so less distractions is a real help.

Fellow students of what? Computer science (Informatik)? What a scarry

idea. Now, don't get me wrong - I presonally would choose a rather

different approach to programming intro: until recently often CS was

taught with using Scheme. No objects or packages (at least not in the

old standard).  Wonderful literature [1][2]. But a lot of students

complained about using an 'ivory tower' language instead of something

they could use later on in their career ... go figure :-(
> > $ cat > Foo.ava

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> > class Foo

> > {

> >   static { System.out.println( 1.2+3+"||"+3+2.1 ); System.exit( 0 ); }

> > }

> > ^D

> > $ javac Foo.java

> > $ java Foo

> >

> > C'm on, that's not really that hard, no Eclipse, no packages, no real object.

>

> Is this using some implicit main() or something?

No, it's using a static code block that gets executed after loading the class.

Nice

concept if you think of it (and it would be cool iff C/C++ had something

similar in

a portable way).
> I wouldn't expect 4.2||32.1 as a result. Either interpret the whole

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> thing as a string, or the number parts as float or don't do this

> kind of automagic conversion at all. Interpreting numbers as numbers

> and interpreting numbers as string in the same statement is

> something I wouldn't expect.

Evaluation order, another basic topic of programming, sigh :-/

Remember, there's no such thing as "the whole thing" here. Just a crude mixture

of chained method invocations and special operator calls.

Yes, there's a definite price for cute infix notation and overloading. That's

why we

lispers prefer unambiguous prefix notation (hypotetical code):
(strange-+ (+ 1.2 3)

           "||"

           (+ 3 2.1))
> > has to take. Are you criticising the choices the Java team made? Do you prefer

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> > the Ocaml way?

> > So "1 + 2", or "3.0 +. 2.1"  - and then the horrible "add_int_to_float 1 +

> > 2.0" ????

> > That for shure will be less confusing to beginners :-/

>

> I don't know Ocaml, so no idea what the above means.

You need a dedicated operator for every type of argument, so + only works

for integer, +. only works for floats, and if you want to add one to the

other you need to provide your own function (with exactly the semantics you

need).
> > P.S.: if possible i try to avoid programming in Java, but for totally

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> > different reasons.

>

> Which are?

> 

rather off-topic in this list :-)

But it's more the "culture" and comunity arround a language that seems

to be important. At least for me.
 Cheers, RalfD
[1] Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

[2] Exploring Computer Science with Scheme 
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--

R. Mattes -- Systemeinheitsstreichler

Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg

rm@inm.mh-freiburg.de
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