Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!weretis.net!feeder4.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx04.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Gene Wirchenko Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Teaching kids to program (in Java) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:03:40 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 29 Message-ID: References: <4f87624e$0$287$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <71igo75jrn2rodtmtv8qnc9q6hrl0n6lkt@4ax.com> <4f88c92a$0$293$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <4f8e22d5$0$293$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <4f8f4c40$0$291$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="wKah3EH8kutwAOV6+9FiEQ"; logging-data="2691"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/MffFjUehAktoLxzkMOe+SbOPCz+uCaGg=" X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 4.2/32.1118 Cancel-Lock: sha1:+mmnxP3B4EbPArmvKVmERJDJU2k= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:13652 On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:20:30 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote: >On 4/17/2012 10:57 PM, Gene Wirchenko wrote: [snip] >> I really do not like gotchas. They can waste a lot of time. I >> really do not like the attitude of "Oh, well!" about them either. > >I can not see a big difference between that and knowing that >an integer starting with zero is being interpreted as >being in octal. I can. One reads about datatypes for a language, and the first thing that comes to mind is what values is it a collection of. Then, comes operations. One does not expect common things to be redefined without notice. That is what the octal notation does. There is also a good reason for using leading zeroes (alignment). >One need to know the tool one uses. Certainly. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko