Groups > comp.lang.java.programmer > #33079

Re: Java primitive variable objects

From	Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject	Re: Java primitive variable objects
Date	2015-11-10 12:23 -0500
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<n1t91s$6kk$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(5 earlier) <n1re9r$rik$1@speranza.aioe.org> <n1rh0d$gf7$1@dont-email.me> <n1rjnc$gme$1@dont-email.me> <n1rn6o$qov$1@dont-email.me> <n1spqc$30v$1@dont-email.me>

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On 11/10/2015 8:01 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Nov 2015 22:12:40 -0500, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
> 
>> On 11/9/2015 9:10 PM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>>> Yes, but its what a *University* should be doing - and apparently a
>>> number of US State universities weren't doing it in the 70s and haven't
>>> changed their ways 20 years later, as confirmed by ED. The question is:
>>> have they changed since then.
>>>
>>>
>> It's hard for a university to teach students something that won't even
>> exist for 20 years.  
> Yes, of course, but what I was trying to say is that a University should 
> be teaching their students to learn, not just pounding facts into their 
> heads with rote learning.
>

You can teach a person facts, but you cannot teach them to learn.  That
can only come from one's self desire.

>> For instance, when I was in college, there was no
>> C, much less C++.  So how was my university supposed to teach it?
>>
> They weren't, but if they did turned out properly educated graduates, 
> they'd be equipped to learn new languages by themselves.
> 

Yes and no.  I used to teach in the corporate world (contract
instructor).  Among the classes I taught were Java and C++.  And, of
course, within those courses were OO techniques.  The syntax of the
language was easy for most students to pick up.  OO concepts were much
harder for most students.

> For instance, nobody ever formally taught me to write TAL, the language 
> Tandem wrote the Guardian OS and its utilities in, but I quickly spotted 
> its similarity to PL/9 (a derivative of PL/M) which I'd taught myself and 
> was fluent in, so I quickly picked up enough TAL to write a module that 
> transferred messages between SNA LU.2 sessions and TCP/IP sessions. We 
> needed to make an AS/400 financial application talk to banking package on 
> an HP UNIX box via a Tandem NonStop box. 
>  

But you already had a similar language, so it wasn't much of a jump for you.

>>> In NZ, where I got my degree, and in the UK computer science degrees
>>> have certainly taught programming languages, but as tools that let
>>> students get hands-on experience of the non language-specific skills
>>> that the degree is meant to teach them. Things such as the elements of
>>> hardware and software architecture, systems analysis principles (not
>>> how to use SSADM, Bootch or Rational Rose), modular program
>>> decomposition (not how to look up design patterns). IOW, they're
>>> teaching general principles and problem solving - skills which *can*
>>> serve you well throughout a career.
>>>
>>>
>> We learned that, also.  But we didn't learn object oriented programming,
>> for instance - another concept which didn't exist at the time.  The same
>> with relational databases, SQL and any number of concepts we use
>> regularly today.
>>
> Same thing - you evidently went to a pukka university which equipped you 
> to learn. 
> 

No, *I* equipped myself to learn.  The university just taught me the
sciences of the day.

>>> I'd call any school that simply taught coding in a programming language
>>> a polytech: its certainly not a University, at least not the sort of
>>> University I attended.
>>>  
>>>  
>> It wasn't the type I attended, either.
>>
> Indeed, but it certainly WAS the type of school that my colleague in NYC 
> had attended.
> 
> 

I don't know what college your friend attended, but even in the 70's I
don't know of any universities which only taught COBOL as a CS major.
In my university, engineering students were required to learn FORTRAN
(and not much else CS-wise), and I think (but am not positive) some
business-related studies required COBOL.  But CS required much more.

-- 
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

Thread

Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-02 10:11 -0800
  Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2015-11-02 14:15 -0500
    Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-02 13:03 -0800
      Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2015-11-02 16:29 -0500
  Re: Java primitive variable objects Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2015-11-02 22:46 +0100
    Re: Java primitive variable objects Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2015-11-02 22:52 +0100
    Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2015-11-02 17:47 -0500
  Re: Java primitive variable objects Joerg Meier <joergmmeier@arcor.de> - 2015-11-05 22:19 +0100
    Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-05 13:31 -0800
      Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-07 22:21 -0500
        Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-09 04:52 -0800
          Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 08:54 -0500
            Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-09 07:27 -0800
              Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 10:51 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-09 08:28 -0800
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 11:57 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-09 10:13 -0800
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2015-11-09 13:28 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 14:53 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Nigel Wade <nmw@ion.le.ac.uk> - 2015-11-10 09:27 +0000
                Re: Java primitive variable objects "Jeffrey H. Coffield" <jeffrey@digitalsynergyinc.com> - 2015-11-09 10:44 -0800
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-09 18:59 +0000
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 15:02 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-09 22:57 +0000
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 19:16 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-09 20:55 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 22:13 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-09 20:40 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 22:23 -0500
          Re: Java primitive variable objects Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-09 14:00 +0000
            Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-09 07:18 -0800
              Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-09 20:43 -0500
          Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-09 19:38 -0500
            Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 20:26 -0500
              Re: Java primitive variable objects Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-10 02:10 +0000
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 22:12 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-10 13:01 +0000
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-10 12:23 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-10 10:10 -0800
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-10 22:08 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-10 20:05 +0000
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-10 13:21 -0800
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-10 23:30 +0000
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-10 20:58 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2015-11-10 22:30 -0800
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-10 21:58 -0500
              Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-10 21:56 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-10 22:19 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-10 22:42 -0500
                Re: Java primitive variable objects Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-10 23:07 -0500
            Re: Java primitive variable objects Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-10 06:06 -0800
  Re: Java primitive variable objects Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2015-11-16 14:47 -0800

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