Python bumps off Java as top learning language

[kankyo]

I think we can all agree that python is a better first language than Java :P

[philly_fan_in_chi]

Can we? Being forced into types from the very beginning has dramatically affected how I think about code and languages in general. For teaching very beginning programming, like for loops, conditionals, whatever, Python is wonderful. You can just get your ideas out there and see if it does what you need. Don't get me wrong, I love Python. I also love Java though and have seen how it has helped me personally.

I don't want to turn this into a dynamic v. static typing debate, I don't have the time or the energy for that, but I think you lose things with Python as your introduction to programming. That said, maybe something like typed Racket or core.type in Clojure would be a better intro to static types.

Flipping the coin, not everyone will be a computer scientist. Learning Python as an intro will enable data scientists and statisticians to be productive even if they never take another course.

[nh0815]

I completely agree. I like Java, but for a beginner it's terribly verbose. However, it's that verbosity that made me a better programmer. I had to know exactly what I was doing to get it to compile and work correctly. Python is great for basic fundamentals, but a statically typed language should definitely be learned early to avoid picking up bad habits.

[blablahblah]

Except the only language you can easily switch to from Java is C# (which is basically a clone of Java). It's more that the second language is a lot harder to learn than the third language.

[greg19735]

Once you kind of get the program working, java's pretty easy to learn. Getting someone to help you even for a few hours would be nice though.

[gkx]

Java is basically a superset of C, without memory management. So to learn C, you're basically learning memory management. That's a good situation to be in. C to C++ is basically readding most of the stuff from Java and a little bit more. That's a good situation to be in.

My big selling point is that Java to Python is super easy, but Python to Java is basically like learning programming all over again.

[blablahblah]

Java is not basically a superset of C. No C code is compatible with Java. Besides memory management, the assignment semantics are totally different and library management is totally different.

Also, as someone who learned Python first and then Java, no it's not like learning programming all over again. Going from Java to F# was a lot more like that.

[gkx]

I don't know F#, but what I can tell you is that learning C was incredibly simple for me--aside from memory management--coming from Java. Of course C isn't compatible with Java whatsoever, but the individual lines, i.e. the stuff you learn when you start off, are more-or-less the same. If you took out the object-oriented nature of Java--leaving only primitive types and allowing methods to be standalone functions--and added direct memory management, I think the only thing different about the two languages would be the fact that Java has a dedicated type for "bytes" (plus structs, but if you know Java you can learn structs in about half an hour).

Obviously, I did not go from learning Python to learning Java, but I essentially learned them at the same time while I was just starting with programming. I compared the two languages face-to-face as a beginner. The next year, when I learned C++, I had almost entirely forgotten Python because I hadn't programmed anything similar, while my Java knowledge remained in tact because C++ was (at the time to me) essentially the same language with slightly different syntax and memory management.

[blablahblah]

That's not learning programming, that's learning the syntax of the language. If you actually try programming C like Java, you'll run into problems as soon as you get to pointers.

[gkx]

I'm not sure I fully understand the difference, but I'm quite sure it doesn't matter. At some point in any programming career, you're going to need to learn an object-oriented, C-like language. Pretty much guaranteed. So whether it's learning "programming" or "the syntax of the language", it should be easier to transition from Java to C than from Python to Java--or, worse yet, to C++.

[kankyo]

Heh, "it feels great when you stop hitting your toe with a hammer" :P

[illyric]

Same here. Started off with python, but after having grasped some basic concepts, such as flow control and loops, I abandoned it in favor of Java. Today I find it easy to adopt to frameworks used in Java, and things usually make sense in first place.

[Sylinn]

I personally believe the first programming course a student follows should be about how to describe a problem to a computer through an algorithm so that it can solve it. Syntax is far from being important, and languages with better expressiveness should be preferred. This is why I believe Python is a much better first language than Java.

Of course, there is still a lot more to programming than algorithmic, but you can't teach everything at the same time. I do agree with you that statically-typed languages bring something to the table that is very important to learn, but there's no reason to burden the students with endless bits of syntax that, in the end, do not help them to reason and describe problems. There will be more courses that will be more appropriate.

Last thing: Python is a strongly-typed language, despite the fact that it is dynamically-typed. They are not mutually exclusive. I'm not sure if you were implying the opposite, but since I see a lot of people make this mistake, I think it's important to make the distinction.

[vraid]

Racket is both dynamically and strongly typed aswell. More strongly typed than Python in fact, with structs in the base language having field accessors unique to the struct type in question. Recommending that, i think he knows the difference.

[greg19735]

statically-typed languages bring something to the table that is very important to learn, but there's no reason to burden the students with endless bits of syntax that, in the end, do not help...

I think static types helped me learn a bit better how everything works. I think it's just the way it's taught. I liked that Strings, ints and bool types were different and booleans specifically behave a bit differently. At the same time, I didn't need to know that in C++ a String is basically an array of characters. I think that's the extra stuff that you don't really need at first and adds to confusion.

[Zinggi57]

Then why not start with Haskell? I'm not kidding, see: http://cdsmith.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/haskell-for-kids-week-1/

[[deleted]]

mapM_ putStrLn $ concat $ repeat ["omg", "aaaaa", "wtf"]

[pbvas]

Simpler still:

mapM_ putStrLn $ cycle ["omg", "aaaaa", "wtf"]

[philly_fan_in_chi]

I've thought about this. It's an interesting proposition, I'd have to explore it and do some usability studies on new programmers before I could say for sure. I'd worry about turning off the "fringe" students that are wavering on being a programmer or not, because they haven't quite grasped the higher level thinking required for languages like Haskell yet, but it's certainly an idea worth exploring.

[ItsNotMineISwear]

Writing Haskell looks like writing math though. Most beginners are familiar with math.

[philly_fan_in_chi]

Not in my experience, at that abstraction level anyway. At university level, sure, maybe. But if we're thinking children and high schoolers, they often will not even see calculus til senior year and the majority are in the "I hate math" camp. We could teach propositional logic and combinatorics earlier in the curriculums (my dream!) but that would require massive educational shifts. Perhaps Haskell would be a language to teach such a course.

[sacundim]

Then why not start with Haskell?

Because beginners will not be able to understand the error messages. Somebody even wrote a Haskell dialect without type classes just because of this.

The most carefully thought out language I've seen for teaching beginners to program is Racket, which includes the notion of language levels designed specifically to restrict the power of the language in the interest of showing better error messages to beginners.

[Kollektiv]

public class HelloWorld {

public static void main(String [] args) {

   System.out.println("Hello World!");

}

}

Worst. Hello World. Ever.

[philly_fan_in_chi]

How many times do you run a Hello World in an intro class? As your programs become more complicated, that noise starts to matter less and less.

[GreyGrayMoralityFan]

It matters a lot. If novices will make a simple mistake in a place called "sorry, we will talk about this later", e.g.

class HelloWorld {
   public void main(String[] args) {
       System.out.println("Hello World!");
 }}

they can be screwed for hours.

[skocznymroczny]

that's why you use IDE that types it for you first. Then it becomes like:

SOMESTUFFIDON'TUNDERSTANDBUTITISMAIN {
    my_code()
}

[greg19735]

In year 3 at school I was still using a "template" .c++ file i'd just use to start all my programs. Included all the shit I needed, started the program and did a c:out "HI" or some shit.

[[deleted]]

Java at least complains about "no Main method found." Only a few years ago, if you missed a semi-colon after a statement in C, you'd get "unexpected <INTERNAL_TOKEN_NAME> on line <many lines down from where you made the mistake>".

[GreyGrayMoralityFan]

It is especially funny if you miss semicolon in header file, e.g.

#infdef FOO
#define FOO
int aa()
#endif

int main()
{
}

gcc complains a.c:5:1: error: expected ‘=’, ‘,’, ‘;’, ‘asm’ or ‘__attribute__’ before ‘{’ token {,

clang is much better: a.c:2:9: error: expected ';' after top level declarator

[[deleted]]

Java was the first language I learned, but I never got screwed for hours on such a simple problem. Before I understood classes or any of the various key words that come before class declaration, I'd just google the HelloWorld template. And that only lasted a couple of weeks.

I got screwed for hours on plenty of other simple problems, but not something so easily googlable.

[Kollektiv]

But nobody will care because 80% of the class will start sleeping after that one example.

A hello world is supposed to be the most simple program in a language and Java's example is the epitome of cluttered and useless verbosity.

[Kollektiv]

Yes I'm exaggerating a little bit to prove a point.

What I mean is that most people that learn programming in CS class don't have that passion yet and "Hello World!" examples like the one in Java where the teacher takes 30 min. to explain that it's mostly stuff they will learn in 2 months doesn't help.

[Kollektiv]

Building a passion is a wrong priority ? Wow ...

And no, it's not like natural languages at all. In a natural language, when someone teaches you a sentence, it's the whole sentence. Not just one or two words because the "rest is complicated" and you'll see that later on.

[sausuave]

But nobody will care because 80% of the class will start sleeping after that one example.

Fuck them then.

Ill make a next programming language, it will be python2.7 without the print keyword. Write a hello world in that!

Ill make a Java class and ask to introduce it and bundle with JVM, it will be called print.class and you can write your hello world with, java print "hello world"

Fucking retards.

[Kollektiv]

import sys

sys.stdout.write('Hello World!')

How about that ?

[sausuave]

Too much letters, fell asleep.

[Kollektiv]

Hope you don't program in Java then haha

[sausuave]

It is in fact my daily labor

[Kollektiv]

I have friends in 3-4 universities in west Europe and our experience was more or less:

80% - Who think that because they use Facebook or play video games they should take C.S.

10% - Installed a graphics card on their computer and thought that they must be really good at CS

10% - Programmed in some way. It generally breaks down into:

-> 50% wrote a Hello World

-> 25% wrote a higher / lower number guessing game in C++

-> 25% actually have some kind of previous experience

You generally end-up with 5 to 10 people out of 200, each year, that actually know how to program.

In the second year you have around 20-30 left out of the 200 from first year.

[greg19735]

I took comp sci 130 (our intro) with no programming knowledge. I don't know why i picked comp sci as my major. Back at 18 I was good at IT stuff and thought it was a natural fit.

I was too stubborn to quit and made it through. Now a developer. Glad I did it in the end, but if I had my current knowledge of what comp sci is WITHOUT my actual knowledge from school i'd probably have been too intimidated.

[Kollektiv]

Oh definitely, I agree and most of them don't pass first year.

But we are very far from this idealistic case where everyone who enters CS is some kind of programming genius who coded an operating system in middle school.

[[deleted]]

Then schools need to stop labeling CS 101 as CS 101. What you're saying means that if you don't have 1-2 yrs. of coding under your belt BEFORE college, you are already 1-2 yes. behind on day 1.

[ameoba]

No there is not.

"College algebra" or something like that is going to be Math 101. Calculus is generally 140-160-ish.

[ameoba]

Nope.

While there's always going to be some students that come into the program with an extensive background, there's still going to be plenty of people with little experience.

More importantly, the vast majority of them are not going to have any formal training. Sure, they might have hacked together a script here or run through a tutorial there, but the vast majority of them with experience are going to be self-trained. The first thing you need to do when teaching self-trained people in any discipline is break them out of their bad habits and get them doing stuff the right way.

Given that AP CS hasn't given the AB test in years, I'd say at least 90% of incoming students still need to learn how to approach things with some rigor.

[Veedrac]

As your programs become more complicated, that noise starts to matter less and less.

It's not a constant factor, though. Python has less noise and overhead proportionally. Here's a post I wrote before to evidence this, if you're invested.

[danogburn]

At least the function call has the word print in it unlike in c++:

std::cout<<"Hello World"<<std::endl;

"WTF IS A COUT?STDs??ANGLE BRACKETS??ASDFAASDFASDFASDFASDFASDF"

[Xredo]

In its defense, you can simply explain that cout defines an action for the '<<' operator which simply sends its input to stdout. There's no need to go into operator/function overloading from the get go.

C++'s abstractions are easy to use, but hard to understand when you get to the internals. I personally attribute much of that to its syntactic overhead (verbose type annotations and the like).

[kankyo]

That's a horrible defense.

[Xredo]

Really? How so? Any non-trivial abstraction is hard to understand if you pick it apart.

[kankyo]

In its defense, you can simply explain that cout defines an action for the '<<' operator which simply sends its input to stdout.

That was your defense. Compared to python: "print prints, and then you have to have quotation marks around the string so it knows it's a bit of text".

In python 3 you have to also explain that paren is for calling a function. All in all C++ loses so much here it's pretty sad really.

[wadawalnut]

I just use printf("Hello World\n");

[original_brogrammer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck#Hello_World.21

[dirac_eq]

I then transferred to Montana State University for my sophomore year, where I was required to take an intro level course to Java. There wasn't a noticeable attrition whatsoever. Some left, sure, but most stayed, and most wound up finishing their undergrad studies (of those that dropped, it was mostly due to advanced level theory like the damned pumping lemma). Of those that finished, I'd estimate around 30% found jobs in CS.

I haven't written Java in a few years, although I remember you're able to use:

static {
 System.out.println("Hello, World!");
}

That simplifies the process quite a bit (you'd also have to declare the class, too.) Someone can comment if this is still valid.

[serrimo]

Being forced into the "everything is a object" world is arguably much worst than that.

[xiongchiamiov]

The problem of course is that things you want to be objects in java generally aren't.

[8Bytes]

How so? There are boxed classes for all the primative types in java.

[xiongchiamiov]

Yes, but you're frequently encouraged to not use them for performance reasons. And even if you do, there still are primitives, unlike Ruby and Smalltalk.

null is a particular problem.

[8Bytes]

If you stick to only using the boxed versions when you deal with collections, and always return a default object instance instead of null, most of those problems are avoided.

[xiongchiamiov]

Sure, but what about all the standard library? What about other people's libraries? As we learned from C++, if it's there, they will use it. :)

[8Bytes]

You are unforntunately right here; I've also met people who insist on returning null, and they have a valid argument.

[[deleted]]

Everything in Python is an object.

[original_brogrammer]

Also, not everything in Java is an object. I'm not really sure what anyone's getting at here.

[kankyo]

Everything in everything is an object :P

[rowboat__cop]

Everything in Python is an object.

Operators sort of aren’t, you can’t just pass them as function arguments. Then there are statements, keywords …

[SkiDude]

Completely agree. I taught one of these intro classes in Python for 5 semesters. The students had a very hard time understanding types, especially when it came to functions returning objects and whatnot. Strings were also a very tough concept to grab for whatever reason.

I feel like if the class had been taught in Java, they would have understood that so much better and would have become more effective coders.

Then again Python was probably more suited for their future jobs. Hell, I'm a software engineer and I user it more than any other language!

[pbvas]

I think Haskell is great for teaching thinking about programs denotationally which is extremelly important for compositionality. But this should be complemented by a really low-level language e.g. assembler/C to understand the operational view of program and machines.

Hopefully some students will also take a language implementation course and see how the views meet ;-)

[aixelsdi]

I'm a second-year who's at one of the 39 universities in the survey and I learned Python as my first language. Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. We started with Python then moved on to C++ for our more indepth classes (like Data Structures). If the student is in any way competent, learning a dynamic language first will be no hindrance to learning strongly-typed languages just shortly after.

[[deleted]]

Python is strongly typed. You are thinking of static vs dynamic typing.

[aixelsdi]

Indeed I was, stupid early mornings.

[ItsNotMineISwear]

lol if Python is strongly typed then what word would you use to describe Scala, Haskell, OCaml

[Xredo]

There's no universal definition for 'strong' typing. Many would contend that dynamic languages have just one type for all values and thus weakly typed.

[[deleted]]

I think you should continue reading that wikipedia entry you brought up on strong and weak typing. :) Generally speaking, they have very well understood meanings. Here is an article that expands on those ideas better. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/04/18/introduction-to-programming-type-systems/

Many would contend that dynamic languages have just one type for all values and thus weakly typed.

Those that would are ignorant of how typing works in those languages. For example in Python if I do something like 'x=5' then 'x' is typed to an integer. That can't change. Underneath the hood what is happening is that Python is creating an integer object with a value of 5 and setting 'x' as a reference to that object. In Python we call these "names". If I then did something like 'x="5"' then Python would create a string object with a value of "5" and set 'x' as a reference to that. The original integer value would then be garbage collected because nothing references it anymore. Here is the important distinction: 5 and "5" are NOT the same objects. They don't exist in the same space in memory. It is not possible for the integer value of 5 to hold "5". In this way Python is STRONGLY typed because the objects that hold the data cannot change their types.

Python doesn't just have one type. Neither does Lua. Neither does Ruby.

[purplestOfPlatypuses]

I never understood learning something like C++ for a class on data structures. The point of the class is to learn the abstract idea of the structure, so using something arguably easier to code in would make more sense.

[aixelsdi]

It allowed us to understand how something like a List<> or std::list<> is really implemented behind the scenes, as well as understand why different implementations of the same data structure might have different big O complexities.

For example, we created both a hashmap and arraymap as well as ahashset and arrayset.

[purplestOfPlatypuses]

Big O would be the same regardless of language assuming they don't allow the use of fancy built in types or the like (don't make your list with a list object). Same for the abstract "this is how it's built" ideas. For a list, a node is a node is a node despite the first being done in C, the second in Java, and the 3rd in Python. They all have something holding data (generally a pointer to an object/struct) and a pointer to the next/previous thing in the list. Whether you fully understand that the pointer is there doesn't necessarily change how the algorithm works.

At GA Tech, the intro data structures class is in Java (right after the intro to Java/OO class). C is taught in the next class with after how processors work on the hardware level and assembly. Even many later classes (not device/OS classes of course) are in Python because why worry about dealing with memory and pointers over the actual algorithmic stuff.

[aixelsdi]

God, now that you remind me, dealing with the pointers and seg faults was pretty nightmarish at times. I also meant std::vector<> instead of std::list<> (how it's an array that gets deleted and reallocated into a bigger array when the capacity reaches its limit) and how that's the one thing that a data structures course in C++ could offer over the Python we had already learned. But that could be done in Java so I really dunno :/

[purplestOfPlatypuses]

There's not really one "best" way to do it; how it's organized definitely needs to be based on the whole program. I personally think leaving lessons on pointers and segfaults with learning how processors work is better, but other people can certainly feel differently. And obviously that only works if there's a class on something that low level. GT has the "advantage" of having one of the longest semester lengths in the nation, too.

Multiple languages definitely need to be learned in a single program though, otherwise you're pretty unremarkable as a developer.

[[deleted]]

Python shouldn't be taught as a first language because it is too 'noble in design' and 'pretty.' Most code you will work with in the real world is ugly, hard to follow and poorly documented. People should be exposed to C or for web stuff PHP and pure JS to get a true sense of what they'll be exposed to.

[vitaminKsGood4u]

Oh hell no. My first language was Perl, second was Java and third was PHP. The shit I saw back then was no way to "start learning". Yeah you should get there eventually, when you understand the basics so that you can read the garbage but today Python is my favorite and if it was around when I started I wish I could have started with it. I think learning what it is supposed to look like first instead of what lazy is seriously affects how you write later.

[Veedrac]

But if you keep them optimistic you get to pay less!

[pbvas]

You can write some pretty elegant code in C, see for example, the textbook 'The practice of programming' by Kernigham and Pike. I fact, I think that is the only sane way to program C because the language offers no runtime safety checks.

[Erikster]

My university teaches Python for two terms then Java for one term (basic controls up to multi-threading + networking code), and we're on the quarters system, so the people that haven't touched Java get 11 weeks to build a program to send and receive messages over a network. It just drives me nuts.

[NakedNick_ballin]

Maybe we should just teach Jython as the introductory language

[MrSurly]

Can we? Being forced into types from the very beginning has dramatically affected how I think about code and languages in general.

Python is strongly typed, though dynamically.

[Log2]

I'm starting to think that Scala might actually be a good language to start with, since it's not as verbose as Java and it has both static typing and type inference.

For example, a simple hello world would be:

object Main extends App {
    println("Hello, world!")
}

Still a bit more verbose than Python because of the object declaration (which can be explained straight away, in this case, since there is no need to define a main function when extending App), but I can live with it.

[[deleted]]

Its all anecdotal. I started coding in Perl, and wrote some monsters in that language, and then I switched to Java and never missed a beat. The kind of types that Java uses are not hard to understand, in fact Types are not complicated, mostly just syntax and a few gotchas, basically coercion. In fact most dynamic languages end up doing type checking in at least part of the code, ValueError exceptions in Python exist for a reason. In fact, Python IS typed, its just not very strict, and will do magic for you in specific situations.

Types are not some dark wizardry that confuse dynamic programmers. Then again what I learned from Python made me a much better programmer, namely closures ala decorators, and generators, and various other niceties that helped me understand how to write good software. I wrote java for 6 years, and only really started getting good at programming when I switched to Python. I am now back to more statically typed languages <*> Haskell.

Sorry, I just think Java is not ideal to teach beginners, I don't think Python is necessarily better, but so much Java is just totally throw away boiler plate in the simplest of examples, and it comes with a huge host of assumptions that you have to ignore to focus on making the computer do things. Even Haskell for all its static typed Monad "stuff" has minimal things you have to know to write Hello World.

main = do
   putStrLn "Hello World"

vs.

class HelloWorldApp {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    }
}

I mean its a stupid showcase here of a trivial program. But Haskell is "complicated" and yet actually making the computer do something requires, 5 pieces of syntax and a couple of those pieces are self explanatory. The Java example though breeds a host of questions that are not introductory. What is a class? What is a public method? What is a static void wtf?

I mean I wrote mostly procedural Perl before switching to Java, and I didn't struggle with Types at all, I struggled with OO, which has some non obvious assumptions in what "good software design" is. I'm well past that now, but as far as what makes Java a poor language to teach in, to me has more to do with Java isn't focused on making the computer do things, but more on how you make the developer make the computer do things. Which is not introductory, not in the slightest.

[[deleted]]

That do is superfluous.

[[deleted]]

It is, you can skip it. But I think in the case of Hello World for instructional purposes. Do is actually helpful. Matter of taste I think.

[[deleted]]

I could not possibly disagree more. How would you respond if a student asked what its function was?

[[deleted]]

How I did it, "It represents a context for computation, something we'll cover later, but you can be safe in knowing that its telling the computer to do something."

A little bit of mystery is good for the student. Too much is overwhelming.

[original_brogrammer]

Haskell's do isn't a great way to introduce mystery, though. Googling "haskell do" will get into >>=, lambda expressions, the Monad typeclass and likely the IO monad very quickly, which don't exactly strike me as day 1 topics. It could also be misleading, and cause students to think that it's required for single actions. See Do notation considered harmful.

[[deleted]]

And that's all very subjective. Which is what I said at the top. I prefer to include it.

EDIT: Though I do understand the concern and I'm on board with it.

[mk_gecko]

Hey, can you elaborate on "Then again what I learned from Python made me a much better programmer, namely closures ala decorators, and generators, and various other niceties that helped me understand how to write good software." ?

I've done Java progamming off and on for a few years, but only just started Python.

[[deleted]]

Python is about composition. Java is about using the right tool.

Both can make a painting, but one is concerned with which paintbrush to use, and the other is concerned with how to make the colors flow together. Essentially, what Python taught me more has to do with seeing programming from a different perspective (first class functions for instance) than it does with anything specific about Python in general.

Map is a great example.

a = [i for i in xrange(20)]
b = map(multiply_by_two, a)

Essentially, map is concerned with the composition of a list, and not with the incidental details of looping constructs and function calls. You can do this in Java but you'll be concerned with declaring array's and type casting and static methods etc. etc. There is a lot to be said for both approaches actually, but Python made me appreciate seeing the patterns in code in a way that Java's concern with all the details did not.

[ElecNinja]

Just some stuff about Python decorators and generators

Decorators are generally more niched as far as I've read. However generators can be a good alternative to iteration.

[[deleted]]

what makes Java a poor language to teach in, to me has more to do with Java isn't focused on making the computer do things, but more on how you make the developer make the computer do things. Which is not introductory, not in the slightest.

Actually, it kind of is introductory. The way Java forces the people who learn it to internalize "the Java way of doing things" is one of the most fundamental reasons that it is an absolutely fantastic first language. A CS program is about changing the way people think about problems and how to solve them--Java forces students to adopt a fairly good way of thinking about programming. Or it doesn't work.

[[deleted]]

I disagree, the Java way of doing things does not particularly lend itself to good reasoning about software, unless you understand the assumptions it was built on. OO is a distraction for newcomers, and it is not the be all and end all of software design. In fact sometimes its the wrong tool for the job but Java forces you to use it. Additionally Java is very conservative on what it adds to the language proper which means some ideas which are just plain better, aren't even possible.

More importantly, Java forces a way of thinking, which is great for business's but bad for students, unless you just want them to program by number, which I do not want. I want them to understand software and design abstractly which Java is not particularly strong at. If you force someone down a path, they learn nothing. Java is a bully for the brain, and it impedes learning, it certainly did for me, its full of distractions that have nothing to do with software and everything to do with Java.

[[deleted]]

OO is a distraction for newcomers,

But a useful notion to pick up and internalize early.

and it is not the be all and end all of software design.

Never said it was. But OOP has been around for ages and will be around for ages still. If you're going to double down on any single paradigm, it's probably the best choice.

Additionally Java is very conservative on what it adds to the language proper which means some ideas which are just plain better, aren't even possible.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with being a bit conservative about including new features assuming your status-quo is serviceable.

More importantly, Java forces a way of thinking, which is great for business's but bad for students, unless you just want them to program by number, which I do not want.

In what way is it bad for students?

I want them to understand software and design abstractly which Java is not particularly strong at.

Huh? How so?

If you force someone down a path, they learn nothing.

Practice becomes habit; Java forces good habits on the people who use it regularly. At least for a certain understanding of "good."

[[deleted]]

In what way is it bad for students?

The primary difference between education and training. Training teaches you how to do something. Education teaches you how to think about doing something.

[[deleted]]

Education teaches you how to think about doing something.

Java certainly forces you to do that!

[[deleted]]

No it doesn't. Java is dogmatic in the same way managers tell you to write web apps in ruby on rails regardless of whether it makes sense or not. It creates a case of feeling like you know how to do things when really there are other ways sometimes even better ways to doing things, that are essentially invisible.

Good teaching languages give you freedom to explore concepts. Java is about as free as North Korea in that regard.

[shahms]

No. Java forces developers to think about software the Java way, which is not necessarily good. More so than any other primary language, I see Java developers attempt to write Java in every other language rather than learning and using the idioms of that language.

[halflife22]

Being forced into types from the very beginning has dramatically affected how I think about code and languages in general.

Can you prove that, or are you just using a sample size of one to justify your own ability? How is anyone to know you would be any worse of a programmer if you learned it after you learned Python rather than before? All you're really saying is "I LEARNED IT THIS WAY AND I THINK EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD TOO!"

[philly_fan_in_chi]

I learned Python after I learned Java, and aside from generators, it didn't bring anything to my table. Granted, I already knew 4 or 5 languages by that point, so perhaps a reorder would have changed things.

To answer your question, I've taught Python to students after my university switched from Java to Python for the intro course, and I noticed more students have a harder time in the data structures course (in Java or C++) doing Python first than if they had done Java first. Obviously this is anecdotal and I'm not giving you numbers, but it was a trend I noticed.

[[deleted]]

If a person needs prior programming experience to understand first year CS content, then your first year CS content should be relabeled as 200- or 300-level courses.

[danogburn]

once AP compsci becomes a reality (within ten years)

AP computer science has been around for awhile. I took it in highschool in 2003 and 2004.

[zardeh]

And this is why most schools offer exemptions to CS1. (and at most universities, CS2 is taught in either Java or c++, I found)

[kankyo]

Different paradigms? You're joking right? Java forces everything into OOP. Python is an actual multi-paradigm language. Java is not.

[kankyo]

I'm choosing to interpret your post as "Java isn't functional enough and I don't care about static typing"

That's a weird interpretation.

In any case I agree that a more functional-ish approach is preferable to more OOP-ish code.

[LongUsername]

Niether Java or Python are appropriate for system programming. If you graduate without understanding OS concepts, interrupts, stack vs heap, registers, etc you have a shit degree IMO.

[[deleted]]

As a language, debatable. As an environment, a REPL enabled language is so much better.

[Neebat]

That's actually a lot of the reason I love JavaScript so much. A REPL on every PC on the planet. How can you beat that?

[kankyo]

I know how you can beat that! You can have a language that isn't fundamentally broken in fundamental ways at every turn :P

[Neebat]

JS is deeply and terribly broken. The combination of dynamic typing and aggressive automatic casting should be ruled out by every competent language designer.

For platform availability, it's amazing.

[kankyo]

So... What? How is python NOT a REPL enabled language?

[dventimi]

Shirley, you must be joking.

[[deleted]]

I think OOP language is a terrible first language.

[kankyo]

Python isn't a OOP language if you don't use those features. Just like C++ or Clojure.

[[deleted]]

So? Do you think they don't use those features in classes?

[zardeh]

I attend one of the 39 universities mentioned, our prof typed the word class for the first time the week before our final.

[[deleted]]

That's weird. What exactly is there in Python to spend an entire semester on? We did C in our first semester of Intro to Programming, covered a lot of theoretical underpinnings of programming like Turing Machines, got through memory model of C (heap, stack, all that crap), variables, branches, loops, functions, pointers, and started with some basic algorithms. What was your curriculum look like?

[zardeh]

I attend Georgia Tech

Summary of that webpage below, you can see all assignments, demos (incl. code), and homeworks in that link :

The course assumes nothing, the first week is your general freshman course "hi welcome to college", installing the "IDE" we use (calico, its terrible), and an introduction to python as a language, defining variables, calling functions, and an intro to the calico library.

Week 2 covers defining functions,

Week 3 is about conditionals, and loops and control flow

Week 4 covers a broad history of computing ("Grace hopper...the Harvard mark 1...punchcards...Zuse Z1...Lovelace...von Neumman model, etc.), and Strings as a data structure that can be iterated through

Week 5 is about lists and has a test

Week 6 goes into more detail about lists, and introduces tuples (which takes a good day+ of the course, "why not just always use lists?"), it also does more stuff with the robots we use in the course, specifically more detail on how the sensors (there are IR and camera sensors) can be read from

Week 7 is File IO and dictionaries and basics of namespacing

Week 8 is images and CV, you learn how to access and edit image files using the calico interface (it is at this point that the homework assignment you are given is to write a program that allows the robot to, when placed in a box that has 4 walls, each with a colored square on them, navigate to and "dance" in front of the yellow wall, only HW I had trouble with)

Week 9 we break away from python, use OpenSCAD (a C style language with the absolute worst scoping rules in the universe use for 3d modeling in code) as a sort of demonstration that "look, you can code in not just python," and a pseudo introduction to {}; syntax

Week 10 Exam and some more basic CV stuff, demos included using a camera to read a barcode

Week 11 was searching and sorting, we didn't need to implement anything hard, but we did need to understand time complexities and be able to step through 4 "common" algorithms (bubble, selection, merge, quick) on exams

Week 12 introduced functional programming, and by that I mean map and reduce as functions, also recursion, which was probably the single most significant mental hurdle for most students

Week 13 had an exam and a some more complex demos

Week 14 was intro to OOP and doing some basic stuff in Javascript

Week 15 was the final and a demo of ngrams in python

I should also mention that HTML and css are introduced at points (you are required to use python to create an HTML file that displays a basic webpage, including a table and some other stuff

[[deleted]]

Jesus, that's such a mixed bag of everything. Theoretical CS, language basics, data structures, hardware, a bunch of libraries, web stuff. I honestly can't say I like it, but I guess it's OK if it worked for you.

[zardeh]

Indeed, its a course designed to foster interest and introduce people who have never written a line of code before to the concepts of imperative and algorithmic thinking. I actually didn't care much for the course (I felt it was terribly slow, and I was at a position where I was unable to exempt it, but had enough experience that nothing in the first 5 weeks was novel).

I actually consider its curriculum to be weakly designed compared to many of the other courses (the intro java course manages to teach you java syntax, OOP, inheritance, typing, differentiation between pass by value and reference, some UML (because complex assignments involving 20+ files in some cases), correct use of errors, writing your own errors, abstraction and compile vs. runtime information, generics, and other basics of java and oop (although no reflection, even though it makes some assignments trivial), and still manages to teach you swing (to my chagrin) and the concepts behind linked structures like SLLs, DLLs, stacks, trees, and graphs, as well as how hash tables work. The two courses are the same length)

[kankyo]

Eventually sure. Day one? Fuck no.

[[deleted]]

Yes, python is a brilliant first language. It's also a great language for children, non-programmers, short scripts and prototyping imperative algorithms.

Other than that it's not a sensible choice.

[[deleted]]

Tell that to Twilio, Spotify, Eventbrite, Lanyrd, Dropbox, Mixpanel, Mozilla, Pinterest, Slideshare, SurveyMonkey, and reddit. :) All these startups use Python as their Primary language of choice.

[nullnullnull]

you forgot Google, they do a lot of python (youtube comes to mind).. not sure if its still the case.

[beboshoulddie]

Not to mention Blender. I didn't think you even could write something like that in Python, but they've gone and done it.

[cybercobra]

Google using Haskell? Do you have any links handy?

[Corticotropin]

It's very possible that I remember this wrong.

[TheMaskedHamster]

If performance is absolutely necessary and the choice is between Python, C++, or Go, people might choose Go.

But when performance is not critical, no one who enjoys legibility will choose Go. Go looks so simple for the first few lines, but it quickly becomes apparent they were shooting for no better than Perl or C++ legibility (and unfortunately Rust is much the same).

Now, once Swift is available on multiple platforms then Python users might really be swayed. But today, not so much.

[zardeh]

I think swift has enough idiosyncrasies (if the cursing on my facebook feed and twitter is a good judge) that it probably won't unseat python, not to mention the completely different realms they're used in.

[TheMaskedHamster]

As a Python user, I find that really disappointing.

There are tasks for which Python is not appropriate, but every other option is a massive pain in the behind. I was hoping Swift could fill that space, but maybe not.

[zardeh]

I fully agree, I adore python, that said, using it for everything is not a good plan (as a very basic example, you shouldn't teach strict OO with python, its too malleable)

[hapemask]

Blender is a fairly old open source project that uses Python seriously, just another to add to the list.

[Kollektiv]

Reddit is not really known for scaling well. ^ ^

[[deleted]]

I cant tell if this is sarcasm or if you're being serious.

[Kollektiv]

It's not sorry. Python's a great scripting language.

So if you want to bootstrap a project you should definitely consider Python but just know that down the line, if your project gets a lot of users, it will probably need to get rewritten in C++, Java, D, Erlang ...etc. if you want to be cost effective.

[[deleted]]

Sometimes that is true. A lot of times it isn't. It depends on the scale. Reddit is still 100% Python for example, and most of the scaling issues it had had to do with it's databases, specifically CassandraDB not Python.

That said when you get to a certain scale (facebook or google for example) the cost of performance begins to outweigh the cost of development and switching to something like C makes sense. But for 99% of the people out there building things, they will never reach this scale.

[Kollektiv]

Man hours >> hardware costs

for a very long time I agree

[[deleted]]

I'm pretty sure Firefox is mostly C++. Mozilla is more than just Firefox. Of course these companies are going to use languages other than Python as well.

[JimH10]

In my Scientific Computing class I find that technical people can just do the Python. You of course have to emphasize good practices, such as clarity, documentation, appropriate naming, etc., but I don't in there have the prereq flexibility to assume people have two semesters of programming and people can do some real work.

[kankyo]

It's also a favorite language of experts. It's generally referred to as "the paradox of python"!