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Re: Teaching Java, teaching what?

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On 12/09/2013 09:34 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:
> Silvio <silvio@internet.com> writes:
>> Why not have them write a simple Servlet or two?
>
>    The time for teaching is very limited: I now often have only
>    30 hours to take students from »no programming experience
>    whatsoever« to »first steps with Swing« including exercises
>    done in the classroom. When teaching Java with Swing, I need
>    the JDK as the one single dependency: javac Main.java, java
>    Main, and that's it.
>
>    I have the impression that teaching servlets is more
>    time-consuming, because the toolchain is longer and the
>    configuration and application of more tools needs to be done
>    and explained.
>
I don't see it myself, that teaching servlets would be more 
time-consuming than teaching Swing (or JavaFX for that matter). In fact, 
I think that teaching servlets affords an excellent opportunity to 
introduce students to important real-world stuff:

1) using libraries;

2) the ubiquity and importance of app servers;

3) HTTP request-response handling;

4) how servlets underlie many Java frameworks, with a brief intro to how 
the frameworks build upon the servlet API.

Can this be done in 30 hours, especially for programming neophytes? 
Maybe not. But I'm not convinced you can accomplish more by doing "first 
steps with Swing". The issue here may be that 30 hours isn't 
enough...but I myself have a gut feeling that you'd do better with a 
servlet approach.

For a barebones first approach, I think we can over-emphasize the 
importance of GUIs (web or desktop) as being what beginners expect to 
see, or what they feel comfortable with. I'm probably dating myself 
here, but back in the '70's when I learned programming with FORTRAN 66 
and FORTRAN 77, I (and most of my peers) grokked program output to 
printer or tape, and program input from similar sources. It's also not 
difficult to relate a console input prompt to an HTML text input box - 
students understand that what matters is what you do with the input, not 
so much how you got it.

Let me put something else out there. 30 hours is a short semester if we 
suppose three 1-hour classes per week. Is it even realistic to try and 
introduce any kind of GUI (Swing, JavaFX, servlets with simple HTML etc) 
in 30 hours? Perhaps console output is all you should shoot for.

AHS
-- 
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign:
that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
-- Jonathan Swift

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Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-09 13:20 +0100
  Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-09 16:17 +0100
    Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-09 20:02 -0500
      Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-10 11:56 +0100
        Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? lipska the kat <"lipskathekat at yahoo dot co dot uk"> - 2013-12-10 12:07 +0000
          Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-10 13:39 +0100
            Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? lipska the kat <"lipskathekat at yahoo dot co dot uk"> - 2013-12-10 12:56 +0000
              Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-10 14:38 +0100
          Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-14 20:05 -0500
        Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-14 19:58 -0500
          Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Joerg Meier <joergmmeier@arcor.de> - 2013-12-15 03:49 +0100
          Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-15 11:29 +0100
            Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? lipska the kat <"lipskathekat at yahoo dot co dot uk"> - 2013-12-15 10:55 +0000
          Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-15 16:54 -0400
  Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-09 12:02 -0400
    Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2013-12-09 21:49 +0000
    Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-09 20:11 -0500
      Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? markspace <markspace@nospam.nospam> - 2013-12-09 17:58 -0800
      Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-10 10:22 -0400
        Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-10 11:02 -0500
        Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-10 12:47 -0400
          Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-14 18:04 -0500
            Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-15 16:58 -0400
              Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-15 16:36 -0500
                Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-15 18:17 -0500
        Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-14 17:59 -0500
          Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? leif.roar@invalid.com (Leif Roar Moldskred) - 2013-12-15 04:20 -0600
            Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2013-12-15 12:23 +0100
            Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-15 10:00 -0500
            Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-16 10:28 -0400
          Re: Teaching Java, teaching what? Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2013-12-15 21:32 -0400

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