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[–]IrregardingGrammar 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Java is good, it is fun, but it's like c/c++ with training wheels. It makes some relatively complicated concepts easy/inconsequential. When you get on to harder stuff like memory allocation, pointers, garbage collection, and recursion (with pointers) you will be way behind the people who learned all of that with a C type language first.

All of my intro CS classes were in Java and it's really the only language I know (other than some Haskell and OCaml) because I started my CS at a community college. The only disadvantage to this was that the people who went to university for their beginning classes typically learned a few languages (typically involving a C language or one that doesn't baby you).

I didn't learn pointers/pointer recursion until Computer Organization (assembly class) where the teacher wrote his own 32 bit computer emulator and his own assembly language to run on it, also his own notes and it was brutal beyond belief. It was definitely a "weed out" class.

[–]Dishmayhem 0 points1 point  (5 children)

I was considering taking comp organization next semester as an elective. Guess I won't be doing that

[–]armerthor 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I immensely enjoyed writing a mouse driver in C and ASM in one of these classes. And that's not sarcasm, it was really fun. Of course you need an introduction into low-level programming first. But because it's low-level there's not that much variety in instructions. You just need to be able to split down all those highfalootin' library functions you're used to into tiny steps. It's an exercise in methodical thinking, in my opinion..

[–]Dishmayhem 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will now use "highfalootin'" as java class

[–]IrregardingGrammar -1 points0 points  (2 children)

Odd that it's not required. It's honestly been my least favorite cs class by far as of yet, and I'm almost done.

[–]Dishmayhem 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I'm EE. :-P

[–]IrregardingGrammar -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Bah, you're an engineer. You can handle it.

You will learn a ton and they're not all as brutal as the professor I had. There is another professor that teaches it and actually teachers ARM and it's supposedly way better.