On Sunday, December 18, 2011 06:17:22 Russel Winder wrote: > The problem here is that educators forgot the importance of learning > multiple languages and especially multiple paradigms. Java was used for > all teaching and students suffered. If they had used Java and Haskell > and Prolog things would be much better.
In my experience, it's fairly common for there to be _one_ required class which is intended to teach about other paradigms - primarily functional languages - so I think that it's fairly typical for students to be exposed to such languages, but given how foreign they are, I think that the typical reaction is that the students don't want to touch such languages again unless they have to. C (and maybe C++) stand a good chance of being used for classes like those on networking and operating systems, so a fair number of students will have some exposure to those, but I think that their typical reaction is to dislike those languages and avoid them unless they have to use them (though I think that they're more to use them than a functional language). Naturally, every student is unique, but most of them seem to prefer what they know best - and that's Java. For most classes though, the focus is on the concepts not the language, which on the whole is exactly where it should be. Any halfway decent programmer should be able to learn a new language, and the concepts of computer science apply to all of them. So, on the whole, that approach is a solid one IMHO. The problem is that it does lead to programmers who are versed primarily in one language rather than being familiar with several, unless they the initiatize and learn them on their own. - Jonathan M Davis
