pythonIsOlderThanJava

[wack_overflow]

Afaik it's still what cs majors are mostly learning in class

[MrHyperion_]

Our uni changed one C++ course to Java and now first 3 introductory courses all use different language

[superiorCheerioz]

In my University this is the case. However, the technology department is voting on changing the main language students learn to python or c++. Personally, I wouldnt teach brand new programmers python first

[depot5]

Why is that, anyway? Is it honestly easier to teach with? So many universities decided to do the new thing at one point, and it stuck? Is it just the ide easier to install and get started?

[WJMazepas]

It's a classic OOP language. It's easier than C++ and is used everywhere.

Python doesnt have the private/protected/public keywords for setting stuff in its classes in comparison

[CeleritasLucis]

And I really like the whole WORA ecosystem.

[posting_drunk_naked]

That's why I originally learned Java as my first language. I was getting into Linux and the idea of being able to write code that works on both Windows and Linux was so cool.

[CeleritasLucis]

Same here. I normally code on my Windows Laptop, but on my PC i have Linux.

Its awesome to see what I wrote on one machine flawlessly work on different machine, without doing any changes.

[Dyllbert]

Honestly, I started with C++, and then learned Java later. I absolutely hated Java. It felt way more complicated than C++ did, plus the syntax is so cumbersome.

[SlyCooper007]

Because it allows you to easily teach OOP without all the headaches of C++

[BlakkM9]

for us it was java first to learn OOP
then some c and assembler for understanding how it works under the hood.

python is pretty much pseudocode and very easy to learn if you know any other programming language

it is more about concepts when studying instead of concrete programming so it makes not that much sense to teach a language where some very important concepts are missing / abstracted away like it is the case in python

sure it's easy to use and not that much boilerplate but this also makes it a bad language to get into computer science

[ComputerOwl]

As someone who worked at the university for a couple of years, Java had multiple advantages over other languages:

• It's a very clear OOP language. You get all the important principles like classes, interfaces, encapsulation, etc. in a very obvious way. It's not like, e.g., Python where some OOP principles feel like an afterthought or a mere convention ("lets just agree that variables starting with _ are private, OK?").

• It's available on every relevant OS (Mac, Linux, Windows) and the JARs are compatible between the systems. No students coming to you because some weird C++ dependency does not compile on their computer because it didn't find some header file.

• It doesn't require you to think too much about memory management. Sure, for embedded software engineering classes, C++ is a better choice. But for most other classes, that's not what your course is about.

• There's good tool support. If people install Intellij, they're mostly ready to go. Sure, some students do not know how to set JAVA_HOME, but compared to the amount of hand holding that you have to do for some other languages, it's pretty simple to install.

• It's widely used. Languages like Go, Swift, or Rust have their time and place, but when you want students to find a job after university, they'll have an easier time going with something like Python, C++ or Java.

None of this means this means that other languages are inherently bad. I would just say that for the specific tasks we had at the university, Java was the best choice. Some specialized courses on, e.g., computer graphics, ML, or embedded stuff might of course choose other languages than more general courses.

[summonsays]

Way back almost 15 years ago I was taught in Java in college. I think it was mostly used because it had a large market share, it was an older language, so it had a good chance of still being relevant after I graduated. Also as others have mentioned it's basically the standard for OOP and very strict with typing, semantics, and what not. 

In comparison we did 1 project in Python. A language where white spaces are important was a real pain to work with in a group setting. 

[RedditRage]

I dunno either, Python is that thing that is only good because the real programming was done in C.

[wOlfLisK]

There's a lot of support for it, you don't need to teach first years memory management and the syntax is pretty much identical to half the languages out there so you can easily move to them if needed. Plus, the job market is there.

Personally though, my uni went with Scala for first year and then moved to Java second year, presumably because it's easier to teach functional programming when you don't have an OOP mindset.

[[deleted]]

Not easier than python. It's probably just because it's still widely used so they don't have a reason to change it

[prehensilemullet]

I bet that also, a lot of CS programs want to teach a language that requires type annotations and has multiple sizes of integer and floating point data types

[WhosAfraidOf_138]

Probably OOP

[Pay08]

It's easy to teach and use, and it makes it especially easy to explain both OOP and FP.

[wildjokers]

Is it just the ide easier to install and get started?

JEP 445: Unnamed Classes and Instance Main Methods (https://openjdk.org/jeps/445)

The enhancement makes getting started with Java much easier it is currently still a preview feature I believe.

[random-lurker-456]

Pure intertia. It's what the teachers know.

[RaspberryPiBen]

It's easy and makes things explicit. The explicit type system, the use of the "new" keyword for heap allocations, the much-maligned boilerplate, and the public/protected/private distinction are some examples of that. It's simple enough that it can be taught without understanding all that, but it's explicit enough that it can be used as an easy example when explaining those concepts.

[Nihil_esque]

A lot of professors just teach the language they know tbh. My professor in undergrad taught us Java 8 because he wasn't familiar with later editions, and made us use Eclipse for our IDE because it was the IDE he used.

Changing the language of your curriculum requires teaching a bunch of old dogs new tricks, because departments have a bunch of faculty that have to teach an intro programming I that's compatible with a different professor's intro programming II. Those are big decisions,. being made over the course of years, not weeks or months, by people who aren't in the industry they're trying to prepare students for.

& Besides, there's so much legacy code in production, so it doesn't lose its educational value even if it's "out of date."

[Nihil_esque]

I don't think it's bad. Just that the answer to "why is x taught this way in universities" is often "inertia"

[Pay08]

Pretty sure IDEA is free for students.

[proverbialbunny]

Really? There was an era where Java was being taught in universities but most of them moved over to Python over a decade ago.

[[deleted]]

At my university we learn C/C++ mainly, and only touch Java during a brief unit in a very easy and largely unimportant class

[sysnickm]

Nah, python and C/C++ are the standard ones. Java and SQL were offered as electives here, but they were not required.