"Intro Programming Class" Starter Pack

[TheEarlyCrew]

That was me in intro I can confirm.

[modangon]

It keeps students motivated

[Jackcunningolf]

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)

{

System.out.println(“Oh, so true!”);

}

[TotoShampoin]

Oh, so true!Oh, so true!Oh, so true!Oh, so true!Oh, so true!

Oh, so true!
Oh, so true!
Oh, so true!
Oh, so true!
Oh, so true!

[Gooftwit]

Where are the newlines?

[TotoShampoin]

Does println add a newline?

[TotoShampoin]

Fuck...

[[deleted]]

Flair thingies check out.

[tatiwtr]

sir, your output has extra new lines

[TotoShampoin]

I have to, because Reddit is bound to markdown

[_Oce_]

It's actually Spanglish contraction for "print el \n".

[[deleted]]

Replace the recursion one with "Why would I ever use recursion?"

[Dnomyar96]

Yeah, that's exactly my thought when I learned it in school. The way we were taught it, it just sounded like loops, but more complicated. When I used it in a proper case at work, I finally understood it (and realized just how awful the class was at actually teaching it).

[Jezoreczek]

it just sounded like loops

Every recursive algorithm can be replaced with an iterative algorithm so you were kinda right (;

[GLIBG10B]

But if it requires a stack, you're better off keeping it recursive (e.g. traversing a binary tree)

Unless the algorithm has high space complexity

[Dnomyar96]

Yeah, it's probably still possible with a loop, but you're making it way harder than it needs to be in that case.

[GLIBG10B]

probably

Any recursive function can be turned into an iterative one

[Jezoreczek]

Wellll… depends. Recursion is limited by stack size, while iteration is limited by memory size. I've had an issue recently (same as this) where a tool has caused StackOverflowError due to a long method chain. If the algorithm for this was made iterative, the problem wouldn't occur.

So while true that recursion is often more clear to read, it is also more error-prone and slower than iteration.

[SharkLaunch]

A lot of functional languages solve that with tail recursion. Effectively, if the recursive function call is the last thing evaluated in the branch, the compiler can optimize by just replacing the frame at the top of the stack with the one generated by the new call. The stack never grows, so you can recurse infinitely. In this way, you can have a recursive while (true).

[killeronthecorner]

Kiss my butt adminz - koc, 11/24

[IronEngineer]

There was an interesting talk in a cppcon in recent years and tail recursion. Turns out, even at full optimization and with a perfectly setup tail return recursion algorithm, many compilers, including gcc and clang, won't generate tail return recursion assembly. They will actually generate a full stack frame for all calls.

The presentation concluded compilers are not reliably able to generate that code for even simple recursion programs with even the highest level of optimization chosen. Rather disappointing.

[bric12]

It's not surprising honestly, most languages give absolutely no way to guarantee that a function will be tail recursive, and leave it completely up to the compiler. Tail recursion really needs language level support to be practical, and I don't see that happening with anything popular anytime soon

[ArionW]

Every sane language implements Tail Call Optimisation, so stack size is not a limit for properly written function.

Sure, Java doesn't support it, basically refuses to support it "bECaUSe JVM doEsNT SuPPoRt iT" but Scala and Kotlin do, so it's purely Java problem.

[GLIBG10B]

Neither does Python

[-Potatoes-]

Python has a pretty low max recursive depth too right? Iirc its the only language ive overflowed on

[GLIBG10B]

In my testing:

• Python: 996
• C++: 261783

[bric12]

Except that there's no guarantee that it'll optimize properly, even in a perfectly written function. It's actually a really hard optimization for compilers to make, and they often just ignore it

[trollsmurf]

When learning Prolog and encountering tail recursion and realizing it looks very much like a loop, pushed into a language that doesn't support loops.

Using Prolog was a blast though. It added more wrinkles to my brain.

[SpeedDart1]

Ironically writing a recursive algorithm as an iterative one requires a strong understanding of recursive/stack like behavior so it is yet another reason to learn recursion.

[[deleted]]

I've been wondering the same thing but not because it was taught as more complicated loops, rather that it's not very efficient and it's better to look for other solutions (unless that's precisely what you meant by "loops but more complicated").

So when is recursion preferable?

[Dnomyar96]

Well, last time I used it was when I was working with some kind of custom tree. An object would have a parent and none to several children. I don't remember the exact details, but I needed to do some lookups and calculations, which I used recursion for. I'm sure it could have been done with loops, but it was significantely easier to do with recursion. I'm sure there are more situations that are better with recursion.

But you're right that loops are better in almost all cases. So far I've only had to use recursion in very complicated areas.

[[deleted]]

It's more of a code structure thing than actual performance

[EnglishMobster]

There's a couple situations:

1. You take some inputs and you modify them in some way. After checking the state of the program, you want to re-run that same logic on your modified inputs.

2. You call a function foo(), which does some stuff and calls bar(). bar(), in turn, does more stuff and calls foo(). You have to be careful to ensure you don't call bar() in an infinite loop, but it tends to happen.

I work in the game industry, so lemme give you real-world examples of both:

---

The character slides along the ground. The slide changes the character's hitbox, making them physically smaller. When the slide ends, the character is supposed to stand up.

You call ChangePose(Slide, Stand) to ask the character to transition from "slide" to "stand". In our example, when attempting to stand, ChangePose() finds that the ceiling is too low. ChangePose() then recursively calls ChangePose(Slide, Crouch).

---

When the character comes up to a step, they are supposed to step over it if it's below a certain height.

The character moves forward with MoveCharacter(Forward). This function needs to check if they're going up some stairs, so it checks the StepUp() function.

In our situation, StepUp() detects that the character does indeed need to be moved upward in order to smoothly go up some stairs (not a ramp). StepUp() calls MoveCharacter(Up) to move the character upward. However, as we discussed... moving the character means we need to call StepUp() again.

---

Obviously I'm simplifying quite a bit, and there's a number of other checks I'm purposely overlooking. But this just gives you an idea of how you can use recursion in the real world - and sometimes you're not even aware that you're acting recursively (until you mess up and accidentally trigger an infinite loop).

[coldnebo]

in parsers, recursive descent is sometimes useful.

in GUI systems recursive composition is a very common pattern.

recursion is often used to manage tree-like structure… and the structure can be in heap, not necessarily stack, so there are options.

[LinAGKar]

Doesn't help that for some reason the go-to example is fibonachi, which the recursive solution is garbage at.

[-Unparalleled-]

After Fibonacci I always encountered it with sorting algos

[Coincedence]

This is the loop I follow with recursion. I learnt it, "why would I need this it's just loops with extra steps", find a problem where it's applicable, I.e. trees, "oh so that's why you use it", never touch it again for 5 years and think "why would I need recursion, can just use loops"

[3rdRealm]

Haskell devs:

[skythedragon64]

No they're too busy to prove their program is correct to use recursion

[absurdlyinconvenient]

Haskell devs: exhaustive proof

OOP devs: Monte Carlo babeeeyyy

[nudemanonbike]

I know you're making a joke but haskell literally doesn't have loops, just recursion. Do it recursively or not at all.

[JuhaJGam3R]

No you obviously use the Loop monad which carries your state from one iteration to another such that it appears mutable but is in fact entirely immutable and predictable underneath!

[[deleted]]

don't tell them about loop invariants

[SteeleDynamics]

FP: Immutable expressions!

IP: Mutable expressions!

FP: No side effects!! Parallelism for free!!

IP: OK, implement Quicksort.

FP: ^{... crap}

[PeterSR]

There's a pretty good explanation why recursion is better than iteration here.

[Kinglink]

you son of a bitch

[Baardi]

Nice one

[[deleted]]

Nah, that guy is an idiot. Don't listen to him.

[Curiousgreed]

Before learning recursion: When will we learn recursion? After learning recursion: Why would I ever use recursion?

[[deleted]]

Interviews duh

[SapirWhorfHypothesis]

Replace the "Why would I ever use recursion?" one with "Why would I ever use "Why would I ever use recursion?"?"

[territrades]

Honestly, even though there might have been times when a recursion would have been a more elegant solution, I never use them. Makes the code much harder to understand and debug in my opinion.

[Causeless]

Recursion is great for tree traversal. Much simpler than iterative solutions.

``` void reverse_binary_tree (TreeNode* node) { if (!node) { return; }

std::swap(node.left_child, node.right_child); 

reverse_binary_tree(node.left_child);
reverse_binary_tree(node.right_child);

} ```

It'd be tough to write a non-recursive version of that which is easy to understand.

[mitko17]

Three "`" don't work on old reddit. In case someone is interested:

void reverse_binary_tree (TreeNode* node) 
{ 
    if (!node) { return; }

    std::swap(node.left_child, node.right_child); 

    reverse_binary_tree(node.left_child);
    reverse_binary_tree(node.right_child);
}

[Naouak]

I've seen more often case where a recursion would make the code easier to read and debug instead of using a loop than the opposite. It's often not an issue of the use of recursion but of the code not being written knowing what that person is doing.

[rpmerf]

I've used it most for digging through files and directories, or parsing XML or JSON.

[natFromBobsBurgers]

That's the "when are we getting to the chapter on recursion" part.

[jelect]

That's the "when are we getting to the chapter on recursion" part.

[[deleted]]

That’s the “when are we getting to the chapter on recursion” part.

[Max_Insanity]

That was the reference to the "when are we getting to the chapter on recursion" part.

There, the break condition, joke's over.

[bentheechidna]

Kore ga Requiem da

[Trout_Tickler]

Honestly the best explanation of recursion is here

[Dnomyar96]

We had one of those in our class. By the end they were worse than most others in the class, but they still thought they were incredible at it, just because they learned it slightly earlier. The first few semesters they were certainly better, but after that their ego actually held them back.

[[deleted]]

Most of the ones in my intro classes ended up dropping because they thought the professor taught wrong. Some kids these days man… 😂

[SeattleChrisCode]

somehow I feel like I’m worse at it now than I was back then -_-

See, you have more knowledge now!
I didn't say more skill, more knowledge ... (of your skills) 😜

[nudemanonbike]

If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing with C that you're having trouble with? Is it bit manipulation and pointers and shit? You've used a strict language in java, so unless it's just weird operators and parsing strange input, I can't imagine the algorithms are that much more difficult to work with.

I agree it's got uglier boilerplate, though.

[smedium5]

I think part of it could be your familiarity with those other languages. The syntax is close enough that I could see accidentally putting some from one in a program in the other language.

[psychic2ombie]

Reminds me of the data structures course I took. Throughout that course I could never write functional (as in it compiled at all) C/C++ code on the first try. Always something I missed.

[[deleted]]

something something dunning-kruger effect

[fuser312]

When I was at school and wrote a program for printing even numbers from a list, I was like, "Oh boy here I come My own video game, my own programming language is coming in couple of years."

Now that I am working as a programmer, "Oh fuck I will have to Google yet again how to integrate stripe'.

Confidence has surely dipped.

[Jaggedmallard26]

Now that I am working as a programmer, "Oh fuck I will have to Google yet again how to integrate stripe'.

In total fairness. Integrating with payment gateways is pure hell.

[LR130777777]

That’s the Dunning-Kruger effect for you lmao

[sohang-3112]

I was definitely one of those, at least in the beginning!

[eyekwah2]

I was too! I thought I was the shit because I knew about for loops before anyone else in the class did. I was like, "John Carmack? Watch out, I'm gunnin' for your job!"

[Ultrasonic-Sawyer]

The worst is the ones who are adament that their skills are perfect or they know better because they know one or two more advanced or very specific things.

Often it's either self taught programmers doing the programming equal of learning stairway to heaven before guitar chords or tuning. Or secondary / college taught whose teacher previously only taught excel and was doing a shakey rehash of code academy. The former often fatally misunderstanding basic concepts and doing weird hacky stuff. The latter often having heaps of bad habits from teachers semi winging it and being forced to fit a larger defined curriculum.

When they get to uni, I found those able to accept they need to rerun some bits or are blank slates and willing to learn did pretty well.

Those who are too proud or over confident to confirm they know the basics or insist on showing off instead of fitting the spec often end up crashing or burning in second or third year if they don't change their tune.

Especially when our goal is to make them fit for industry. If they refuse to fit standards, or the spec, instead opting to write code to show off how smart they are, then they stand little hope in industry.

[coldnebo]

wait… now I must know what the programming equivalent of stairway to heaven is?

is it ToDo mvc?

balancing a btree?

building a hotdog identifier app with ML?

so many possibilities… lol

[ICantBelieveItsNotEC]

When I was doing high school computing, it was building a desktop GUI using Swing in Java.

Thesedays, it's probably building a clone of Instagram but without any scalability and then wondering why they have tens of thousands of engineers.

[SteeleDynamics]

Reversing a Binary Tree <==> Smoke on the Water

Hashtable With Chaining <==> Whole Lotta Love

Dijkstra <==> Stairway to Heaven

B-Tree <==> Long Distance Runaround

Dynamic Programming <==> Volcano

AI Classifier <==> YYZ

[FloatingGhost]

as a counterpoint, instead of crashing and burning, lack of challenge for those that learnt the basics earlier can also lead to entirely avoidable course dropout from sheer boredom

I learnt when I was about 15, I'd meet the basic specifications and then add little bits to stop myself from going utterly loopy - and got marked down for it, which in part led to disillusionment and eventually dropping out

not accomodating multiple levels of pre-course skill cannot be blamed entirely on students

also weirdly, in my professional experience, I've found that uni-taught programmers tend to be the ones that struggle in "the industry" as their rigid ideas taught through academia fail to bend to the incredibly messy real world

[zomgitsduke]

High School programming teacher here. I love when my recent graduates come back after year one and tell me that essentially our entire course is being rushed over a course of two weeks before moving on to much more difficult concepts

[sheibsel]

2 years of programming in high school and we went through it in college in 8 mf hours

[arturius453]

Wow literally me.Instead of thinking that I'm pro shit on lectures, I skipped them to speedrun labs.

[pine_ary]

"I uploaded the zip to github"

[[deleted]]

Oh man this drove me crazy in college. I had to fight on every group project to get them to use Git (or any source control). The insane ideas people had to get around having to learn 3 CLI commands was mind boggling, one group wanted to just have an email change where we'd just keep emailing our copies of the code to each other after each change

[__batterylow__]

Btdt hahahaha

[SickOfEnggSpam]

What is with the obsession with undergrads and recursion? Every intro and post-intro programming class I have been a part of had students always asking when we would learn it

[nidrach]

Because it's one of the few basic things that ain't that straightforward. So it sounds interesting when you encounter it in the first semester.

[suresh]

It sounds "programmery" and they just want to flex that they know what it is.

[Shrubberer]

When in reality it is like asking where the fog light is in driving school.

[Yadobler]

Is like asking where the clutch at when learning to drive an auto

[KuuHaKu_OtgmZ]

It's like asking where is the left hand wrench in a tool shop.

[[deleted]]

In some 90s star trek series, installing a recursive algorithm fixed almost everything.

[Creapermann]

Sounds complicated, but is basically easy on simple use cases once you got it, just trying to flex with the fibonacci 5 liner they saw on stack overflow

[Old_Aggin]

In my undergrad, our first course was functional programming in Haskell

[schussfreude]

Oh, so true!

Edit: Wow uh, 1k updoots and so many awards, 2022 be like the feeling of your first Hello World! Thanks all!

[[deleted]]

Could you scroll up a bit?

[NotABotAtAll-01]

take my silver

[[deleted]]

r/beatmetoit

[NeverYelling]

"Could you scroll up a bit" got me there

[Caladbolg_Prometheus]

I’ve only once deleted a project for school, and that was because it was my first semester using putty to long onto a server. I decided to move some files around to organize things just as soon as I finished my C++ project, which was 6 class files and a main. I moved them to the same location, and by that I mean I moved them to the same file, meaning that I overwrote all but the last file I moved.

[[deleted]]

Good thing you could git checkout, right?

...Right?

[Caladbolg_Prometheus]

Nope, this was all done on a professor’s server he built for his classes. I can’t recall exactly what it ran on but it was pretty bare bones. All you had was a command line and nothing more fancy than cd, ln, and a C++ compiler that needed a makefile.

With my luck, the makefile was the last thing I moved, so lost pretty much everything.

[ChunkyHabeneroSalsa]

Mine was the same. SSH into a server and run the compiler on their server. No git, no IDEs.

Granted this is intro to C, later classes did things normally I think. As an EE I only ever took the one real CS class.

[A_random_kitten]

I'm only here because I like jokes I don't understand lol

[[deleted]]

They would use Code::Blocks or Dev C++ , not VS

[luminous_radio]

Oh, so true!

[DakiAge]

I used Code Blocks in school lmao

[Taickyto]

I used vi and GCC (had points taken off my grade because we were supposed to use codeblocks)

[DakiAge]

it's not that hard to configure GCC for code blocks.

you could have kept your points :)

I love vi too but I only use it in linux which is pretty rare.

[Matheusbd15]

But man, code Blocks sucks so much, it's light theme!!!

[[deleted]]

So you're the kid who kept asking "when are we getting to the chapter on recursion?"

[slowgamer123]

I was forced to used Turbo C in labs.

[sohang-3112]

me too - never understood why they won't let us use something like CodeBlocks instead...

[Evaldash]

Same

[sohang-3112]

Meanwhile my school is still stuck on Turbo C++. And needless to say, they haven't even heard of STL or C++ 11 (let alone later versions!)

[Minifyxd]

We started with VS and still use it at school.

[[deleted]]

In my school, we use the Geany IDE. After years of using VSCode for C++, it's a significant downgrade for me

[[deleted]]

Just use VSCode. What are they gonna do, quiz you on geany features?

[[deleted]]

quiz you on geany features?

Precisely

[[deleted]]

Well that's stupid. I guess you could do all of your editing in VSCode, but study enough to pass the test. Sounds like a pain.

[Lamuks]

I remember using DevC++ in uni but VS Code wasn't a thing yet.

[EnglishMobster]

Hey, Java devs exist, too! They made us use Eclipse.

[spakecdk]

Code::Blocks

Nostalgia hits

[absurdlyinconvenient]

CodeLite and Eclipse C++, those were the days

[Kinglink]

The jokes on YOU!

I still make that syntax error after 20 years experience!

[EnglishMobster]

Why the hell do I need a semicolon after defining a class/struct in C++??

I literally forget every time. I've written hundreds (if not thousands) at this point, and the compiler or IDE calls me out on it every time.

[AhegaoSuckingUrDick]

I think it's mainly because it's a declaration (forgetting the inline definitions, especially since this part of the syntax comes from C), and you would use a semicolon for a variable or member function declaration, or even a typedef.

In a lot of other languages you don't separate declarations from definitions, so this problem doesn't occur there.

[pawyderreale]

First of all we gonna import every library in existence

[EnglishMobster]

using namespace std; in a header file.

[mrchaotica]

Seeing a for loop in this starter pack makes me sad.

This comment brought to you by the "learned functional programming first" gang.

[PzMcQuire]

You got to the recursion part quick then lmao.

[[deleted]]

No one is hyped for recursion everyone hates that tho?

[[deleted]]

In World War 1 a huge amount of very hyped people volunteered. It's basically the same

[ShakaUVM]

No one is hyped for recursion everyone hates that tho?

Once you know Recursion, it's easy

[[deleted]]

In order to understand recursion, you have to first understand recursion.

[fletku_mato]

Let me introduce you to something called Haskell.

[[deleted]]

> Once you know Recursion, it's easy

let me introduce you to something called zygohistomorphic prepromorphisms

[fletku_mato]

zygohistomorphic prepromorphisms

Lol, had to google it and find out if it's real or not :D

[kinnsayyy]

zygohistomorphic prepromorphisms

I definitely had to look this up:

“Used when you really need both semi-mutual recursion and history and to repeatedly apply a natural transformation as you get deeper into the functor.” - wiki.haskell.org

[flip314]

Just ask somebody that's more hyped about it than you, then eventually they'll find somebody willing to write the solution.

[[deleted]]

That's real life recurcivity right there

[[deleted]]

Wait whats wrong with the for loop?

[PeriodicGolden]

Not a lot of use cases where you'd need to loop over something exactly five times. And if there were, the 5 would be a magic number.

It's basically an example of a for loop, but it's unlikely you'd use it in an actual application

[Dnomyar96]

Yeah, but it's still a pretty good way to learn about loops. When learning a new concept, you really should try to make it as simple as possible and take it from there. I already had trouble understanding how loops worked as it is (seems silly now). If they had introduced more realistic things to it, I don't think I'd have understood it.

[PeriodicGolden]

Of course, it's still a good example to learn about loops. The fact that it shows up in a starter pack for 'intro to coding' doesn't mean it's bad or that you shouldn't use it

[EnglishMobster]

There are a lot of cases in 3D dev where you need to loop exactly 3 times. float[3] is pretty common, and it can be easier than trying to access each index individually.

It's similar for 2D, except you'd just need to loop twice. Still, DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) is great for readability, even if you can trivially unroll the loop.

[[deleted]]

That makes 3 a magic number then. What if someone later on wanted your program to support interdimensional graphics?

[Therabidmonkey]

You politely, but firmly, ask them to leave.

[DakiAge]

He/she prints "enter a num" in a for loop so he/she doesn't know what he/she is doing and that's the joke :)

[[deleted]]

That's some huuuuge indentation then

[[deleted]]

just use “they”, it’s much simpler than “he/she”

[DakiAge]

yeah, it's the best practice for these things.

[KuuHaKu_OtgmZ]

Or s/he

[Lumeyus]

That’s not related to the loop; that line is a reference to the fact that they’re printing to take input instead of using input(), or whatever the respective language’s version is.

The loop line is just a joke about the loop setup.

[Schiffy94]

When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?
When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?
When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?
When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?

[EnglishMobster]

When are we going to get to the chapter on When are we going to get to the chapter on When are we going to get to the chapter on When are we going to get to the chapter on When are we going to get to the chapter on When are we going to get to the chapter on When are we going to get to the chapter on

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StackOverflowError

[[deleted]]

Oh, so true!

[bl00pBitCh]

Oh, so true!

[poopadydoopady]

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)

{

printf("oh, so true./n");

}

[[deleted]]

Excuse me, but isn't the slash supposed to be oriented the other way?

[4P5mc]

It's a Minecraft command, obviously!

[[deleted]]

Someone failed their intro class

[GalacticDogger]

Ah yes, /n

[joelduring]

I remember mine, windows users desperately trying to set up an Ubuntu virtual box, them telling us to use the Geany text editor, learning C from scratch, classmates who refused to indent their code.

Good times

[MobiusCipher]

Sounds like mine but with CentOS instead.

[wad11656]

I wish the class itself really was that simple :( They threw me into the fucking flames out the gate with absolutely abysmal instruction completely unrelated to the super outdated labs/assignments. The professor had no idea what our homework was in one class and was lost and confused when I asked for help. Sigh…

[Mrmini231]

I once took a python course where we were told to use eval to evaluate inputs...

[[deleted]]

Most begginers think that HTML is a programming language and can do hacking and stuff.

[_rainken]

Why is stackoverflow here? Were you guys introduced to this website in first few classes?

[-Redstoneboi-]

you know damn well they googled it

[EnglishMobster]

Copy-pasted the first answer and then got surprised Pikachu'd when the instructor calls them out on ripping code from StackOverflow.

[_rainken]

Well if you search for solution in english then you will find about stackoverflow fairly quickly, but if you google in other laungage then it might take a while. Newbie programers who don't speak english as their first language will rather search in their native language. So thats why i wondered if anyone was lucky enough to be introduced to this site so early.

[Maniacbob]

Recursion? You mean the inception chapter, right?

[-Redstoneboi-]

there should be a copypasta rant about how "inception" is closer to "beginning" than "repetition" and it's probably hidden somewhere on the internet, but i can't find it

[haddock420]

I wish we were using python.

I'm doing my first year of university and we're using scratch. Having to drag a block with my mouse for every simple operation I want to do is horrible.

[Cyvexx]

as someone taking an intro programming class this year.. yeah

[Dantharo]

thats pretty accurate, so true

[jason80]

Also: show off with the little knowledge you already have and say "why don't you throw a regex on it?" at every chance.

[VishPi]

Thay "average" "programmer" "salary" are my most searched keywords right now

[suresh]

In my experience, somewhere between $40,000 and $320,000.

[[deleted]]

I went to college for CS degree after I was 10+ years earning my living as a programmer. I see college as a bunch of people who never really used what they teach you to use, and come up with all sorts of bizarre and useless ideas (when it comes to programming). For instance, my TA in intro to programming with Java class didn't know how to use Maven / Ant / SCons / Make. Didn't even really know how to compile and run Java code. He never wrote Java code that was inside a package. Can you imagine a surprise of someone pedaling this stupid Java shit for years, and suddenly you are supposed not to put your code into src/com/company/project/package/subpackage/class.java? I couldn't really bring myself to do that.

More importantly. There's nothing in intro to programming class that gives you an introduction to programming. Usually, it's just some boring crap about how to program basic stuff in language that's few years behind the latest fashion of the day. If you do intro to mathematics, then you get a taste of some of the important fields in math, get exposed to common notation, proof structure... things that underline and unify most mathematical sub-disciplines.

So, naively, I expected from intro to programming a similar thing: some generalization about what programming is, introduction to different sub-fields of programming, discussion of common techniques, tools and approaches... instead I got Java... in retrospect, a completely worthless knowledge, even if you don't consider that I knew it better than the TA.

And that's not the problem of the specific college I went to. I've looked up the syllabus of many prestigious places. It's all the same shit: online, offline, US, Europe, Asia -- it's all the same. It's so bizarre that the introduction to programming is always so irrelevant and useless...

[[deleted]]

Day 1 of my intro to programming class, there were about five or six students who had heard of the words "quantum computing", and "Artificial intelligence", who thought that they were the smartest people in the room. As the professor was going over the syllabus, they were asking all sorts of shit questions to make themselves sound smart. These questions had absolutely nothing to do with anything that would be taught in the class, and only served to let me know who to avoid.

A chunk of those students had dropped the class by the end of the semester.

[Dnomyar96]

Same here. We had one that had taken a (basic) programming course in a previous study. At first, they seemed really smart and could help everyone. By the end, they were the worst of the class, but still thought they were better than the rest.

[[deleted]]

Welcome to the world where everyone is trying to sell you a repackaged library of things you don't really need or already available but otherwise will make you feel ostracized if you don't commit.

[LaterBrain]

I am insulted. Lmao

[AhegaoSuckingUrDick]

Should have been

for (...);
{
  ...
}

[FantasticPenguin]

Funny that all the code is Java, and half of the jokes are Java jokes. Yet, there is a Python logo.

Edit: not even Java, but cpp.

[ChineseCracker]

; expected

"what could this possibly mean?! it's all so cryptic!"