“To be blunt,” Dewar wrote, “adopting Java to replace previous languages used in introductory programming courses – such as Pascal, Ada, C or C++ — was a step backward pedagogically.

via Struggle continues to plug embedded programming gap.
I started saying this over a decade ago. I even did embedded stuff in my 3rd year data architecture course – my department was uninterested, and the students had a real hard time wrapping their heads around the thought that there are places where resources are limited.

The department fought me when I said that students needed to learn more than one language (Java). The department disagreed when I said that students should learn how to program for environments where bloated OO methods might not work (….But, the ARE no places where efficiency matters!!! It’s all about “Software Engineering”!).

The students had NO idea what it meant to program for a machine that had no disk, only memory.

Part of the reason CS departments are seen as being so out of touch is BECAUSE THEY ARE!!!

University should not be about job training, BUT it is also NOT about teaching only those things the faculty find interesting.

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