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submitted 11 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

An After-School Program Teaches Teens Java and Python::The students also learn how to design board games and video games

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[-] mothattack@lemmy.ml 22 points 11 months ago

The world can be so cruel.

[-] pivot_root@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

Back when I was in school, corporal punishment was the norm. I would still prefer that over Java.

[-] Fades@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

We get it, you have no idea what modern Java looks like

[-] ____@infosec.pub 13 points 11 months ago

I know exactly what modern Java looks like, and it could be beautiful. But… legacy cruft and lazy devs make it painful. And tech debt, let’s be honest.

I’d view a greenfield project rather differently, but those are unicorns.

[-] pivot_root@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

I’d view a greenfield project rather differently, but those are ~~unicorns~~ written in Kotlin.

[-] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

I don't know a single language that's immune to the things you just mentioned.

[-] stardreamer 1 points 11 months ago

Haskell is still as beautiful as the day it was first made.

Except for class methods. We don't talk about methods.

[-] pivot_root@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I get it, you have no idea what trying to optimize around an ever-changing JIT recompiler looks like

[-] kaffiene@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

It looks like something that doesn't happen

[-] netchami@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago

Java... I started with Java myself when I was a teen. It's not a good idea.

[-] aluminium@lemmy.world 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I think Java is still a good language for beginners. The tooling around it is really good and it catches lots of issues at compile time.

[-] netchami@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 months ago

I'd recommend Python or JavaScript to beginners. Also, Java is dying out right now.

[-] aluminium@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

I seriously don't get why Python is so popular for learners. Its a weird ass very isolated language syntactically. The libraries for it are great but still.

[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Because it dared to change the shitty syntax of bad syntax languages so humans can actually read it.

[-] aluminium@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Its probably bias to what you are used to the most. I think for example copy pasting stuff around in C like languages is way easier than the tab mangling one has to perform in python.

Also python has so plenty of bizarre (i.m.o. not very readable) syntax beyond that. Like

def __init__(self) : for a constructor

the most verbose lambda syntax for something that should make it less verbose to inline functions def x = lambda x: x + 1

logical operators being words while numerical and comparative ones aren't def x = not a or (b <= c)

private methods not really existing thus needing underscores as a crutch

I don't wanna hate on python, the ecosystem and libraries around it are amazing but people saying python is the gold standard in terms of syntax and "readability" is questionable i.m.o.. There also is a reason why many of new modern hyped languages (which don't have to abide to backwards compatibility to some other language like mojo) like Rust, Kotlin, Go, Zig, and Swift are C style langs.

[-] netchami@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago

JavaScript sometimes can be weird as hell. That's why I prefer Python. I don't know, for me it seemed logical from the beginning. Java definitely ain't better.

[-] FourThirteen@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Java is absolutely not dying... unfortunately. Billions of people depend on spaghetti code written by corporations every day. I think Java will be the next COBOL. It won't die and it's unfortunate.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 months ago

"Java is dying" is what people who've never actually worked as a dev for a big company think.

[-] netchami@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

The company I work at is currently replacing all of their legacy Java shit with Go

[-] Maalus@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Okay, and this is relevant how? One company doing stupid shit doesn't mean a language is dying - it's the basis of enterprise basically everywhere

[-] netchami@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

Many companies are migrating away from Java. Have you seen any big projects started in the last 5 years that use Java? I haven’t. Java is only used to either maintain existing stuff or to migrate away from even older shit like COBOL or Perl.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

Many companies are migrating away from Java.

And way more aren't. Especially among big market cap companies.

[-] Maalus@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I have seen plenty of big projects started in Java. Hell, I've written code for at least 10 of them. Just because you personally don't see something happening, doesn't mean it isn't there. Java is as popular as it gets, being in the top 3 languages used. It's not going away and it is not being deprecated any time in the future.

[-] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 2 points 11 months ago

You say legacy code?

[-] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Ditto. Been a Java developer for over 10 years and the tool maturity more than makes up for its faults as a language.

[-] starman@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

In my opinion, C# would be better for this job. It is similar, but has many features that simplify the code, such as top level statements, LINQ, collection expressions and stuff like that. It's also way more popular in game development and that's what most teens are interested in

[-] kaffiene@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

Java is a great language. Still one of the most used languages in the world. Ditto python

[-] pineapple_pizza@lemmy.dexlit.xyz 8 points 11 months ago

Why after school? I was able to take programming classes in highschool in 2010. In the us

[-] jasondj@ttrpg.network 4 points 11 months ago

2002, but it was Visual Basic. I got a fucking C in that class because I spent more time helping other kids figure out the assignment than spending time putting worthless clutter in my interfaces to the teachers standards.

Oh well. At least I learned how to write a GUI to track the hackers IP address.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 6 points 11 months ago

Kids in Asia are way ahead of that. Some countries have had programming on their curriculum for more than a decade

[-] realharo@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I had programming (Pascal) in school in a random-ass country in Europe 20 years ago (I was like 14).

This has been widespread all over the world for a long time.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 11 months ago

At 14 I could barely get a for loop and if statement working properly. Pascal then VB for me, once a week for 2 years. Only really started programming in uni. Some Asian countries start in primary school at as early as 3 years old. It's as important as languages to them. By 14 they're already doing robotics and writing social media clones.

We are quite far behind in the west.

[-] soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id 6 points 11 months ago

Java is a good language if you're a beginner, but if you've already coded before in other languages, it's going to suck.

[-] sebsch@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 11 months ago

Especially for beginners its a bad language. You have the understand artificial concepts about classes, objects, abstract states before you re able to learn the important stuff like if/else, looping etc pp.

I would always give beginners a language which is at least in their way as possible.

[-] Pipoca@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

You don't really have to.

You can just handwave public static void main, and only deal with primitives, then static functions, before introducing objects.

That's what they did at my high school. It's weird, and there's much better ways and languages to introduce procedural programming, but it's possible.

[-] realharo@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They should've just picked Kotlin.

It also encourages good basic habits, such as not making a variable mutable unless you specifically need to (val is way more common than var, the IDE makes them very visually distinct).

this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
209 points (100.0% liked)

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