Path: csiph.com!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder3.hal-mli.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!de-l.enfer-du-nord.net!feeder1.enfer-du-nord.net!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!usenet.ukfsn.org!not-for-mail From: Martin Gregorie Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: "Hello world!" without a public class? Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2013 19:44:07 +0000 (UTC) Organization: UK Free Software Network Lines: 31 Message-ID: References: <-8CdnaTS2P6a5HTNnZ2dnUVZ8vOdnZ2d@bt.com> <8f48da51-0eac-42cf-ab1e-f44b3cefac01@googlegroups.com> <50e99d08$0$284$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 84.45.235.129 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: localhost.localdomain 1357501447 6628 84.45.235.129 (6 Jan 2013 19:44:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@localhost.localdomain NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2013 19:44:07 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Pan/0.139 (Sexual Chocolate; GIT bf56508 git://git.gnome.org/pan2) Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:21060 On Sun, 06 Jan 2013 10:49:26 -0500, Arne Vajhøj wrote: > I have seen so many new Java programmers learning BlueJ and then not > being able to do anything, because they did not understand classpath, > what is Java vs what is IDE etc.. > I'd probably go further and start students with a decent text editor and command line calls for javac/java on the grounds that right from the start they'll have a better understanding of the Java compilation and runtime environment. Once they're starting to write class hierarchies its time to introduce packages, ant and jar. Why now? Because I found the later introduction of these items to be confusing, requiring, as they did, a certain amount of unlearning, particularly in connection with jar files, manifests and classpaths. I don't think students need to see an IDE until they start to find out about refactoring. Again, I'd leave this as late ads possible for two reasons: (1) IDEs generally have complex GUIs which can be quite intimidating to a newbie, (2) they kick entirely too much stuff that a programmer needs to know under the carpet: the build process, jarfile creation, package management, version control - all things that I think are best dealt with explicitly rather than being left to the IDE's magic smoke and mirrors. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |