26 Jan
2012
26 Jan
'12
5:14 a.m.
On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 11:31 PM, TeoZ <teoz at neo.rr.com> wrote:
> ... I know the Uni of Adelaide is mad for Java.
50>
What is the big deal, don't people try out new
things AFTER they graduate
college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use
that forever?
Thankfully, no. The one and only formal programming course I ever
took at Uni was called "Engineering Graphics 200", subtitled "FORTRAN
for Engineers". We did all of our work on either the WATFIV(E?) or
F77 compilers on an Amdahl (only because they retired the IBM
whatever-number-it-was two years before I started). Thankfully, I was
able to do all of my work on the 3270 terminals and skip the "joy" of
using the line-oriented editors in one of many "WILBUR" terminal
rooms. Ecch!
Mind you, at the same time I was taking this, I was also learning
FORTRAN on the VAX-11/750 at work, along with PDP-11 assembler, and
shortly thereafter, C on 4.1BSD on the other VAX 11/750 at work.
Nevertheless, I think the point goes back to what has been popping up
now and again - what you learn early on affects your worldview and
what you are receptive to later. I would not be happy if my very
first experience with programming ever was learning Java on modern
hardware. More to the point, I would probably be doing something
other than software development. I enjoy hammering on registers too
much to be stuck in a sandbox.
-ethan