Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!weretis.net!feeder1.news.weretis.net!news.swapon.de!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Re: Teaching Java, teaching what?
Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2013 22:04:11 -0500
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <l83c1b$bke$1@dont-email.me>
References: <Java-20131208164618@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de> <l82d5l$eon$1@dont-email.me> <syllabus-20131208200629@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2013 03:05:15 +0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: mx05.eternal-september.org; posting-host="6b9e92482af47766954d85fb77d372f5"; logging-data="11918"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/76ttkTGezwcpaXzCXpnXnDVVw/oOoaeg="
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20131103 Icedove/17.0.10
In-Reply-To: <syllabus-20131208200629@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de>
Cancel-Lock: sha1:8osmX2oA7oKFnllSrhBgIPEaUOA=
Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:26790

On 12/08/2013 02:12 PM, Stefan Ram wrote:
> Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> writes:
>> It would be wrong to accept a student whose educational objective
>> misaligned with your syllabus.
>
>    There is no fixed syllabus. The school for adult students
>    just asks me to give a »Java class«, the details of the
>    syllabus are left to me. Every year I am trying anew to
>    write a good syllabus for my Java class that should be
>    aligned with as much student's educational objective's as
>    possible and also reflect what I deem to be important to
>    learn about Java. I am at liberty to include or exclude Swing.
>
>    I do not choose students, instead it's the other way round:

>    If my syllabus and the student's educational objectives are
>    misaligned too much, the student will not visit my class.
>
The student visited my class.

Therefore my syllabus and the student's
educational objectives are not misaligned too much.

Good job!

My bet is that Swing will be a part of the JDK and JRE
for a long time. Yes, beginners expect to see windows.
With a current JDK what are the GUI alternatives?
Are you comfortable with teaching all of the alternatives?
So far it seems harder to pop up a dialog in JavaFX than Swing.
But then I don't yet have much experience with JavaFX.
If the adult students are learning to program for their
own enjoyment, then teach what you are most comfortable with.
They will explore the alternatives on their own once they
get over the hump. If it is vocational training then teach
what they are required to know.