Suggested resources for co-op students moving from Java to VB
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I learned BASIC and Pascal before I started college. In my first year of college I had COBOL and Fortran. C in my second year. Data Structures (in Pascal), Assembly, and Lisp in my third year.
Andrew Rissing wrote:
fundamentals of programming (C/C++, OOP, data structures).
OOP is not a fundamental of programming (it is a very advanced topic) and was not presented in any of my courses. Turbo C++ V1.0 was released while I was in college; I had to teach myself. A student who has the programming bug will likely know more than one language whether the school teaches it or not.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
A student who has the programming bug will likely know more than one language whether the school teaches it or not.
In that early part of school, I knew only C/C++. Granted, I may just be a sole individual or whatever that thought it more important to learn more about a single language than cast my nets at the time into other languages.
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My first co-op student is wrapping up his placement this week and he made a comment that surprised me. At school he's been working almost exclusively I guess in Java and when he came here he was assigned to work on a VB.Net application. I gave him some time and told him to familiarize himself with the project but I didn't think it would be a difficult move to go from Java to VB - after all, an If statement is still an If statement, right? But today we sat down and had a little chat and he told me that he had felt overwhelmed by the experience, so now I'm wondering, if I get another student for whom the programming language is unfamiliar what can I do to ease the transition for him/her?
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Honestly, there are II types of developers. I. Those That Get Dirty With The Documentation or II. Those That Don't (Sorry if this off-shoot of the binary joke offends anyone)
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Java (frying pan) --> VB (flaming fires of hell). It might have beaan easier to go: Java (frying pan) --> C# (fluffy clouds)
me, me, me "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" Larry Niven
C# -> don't run with scissors
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
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PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Or don't agree to take on co-op students from a school that only teaches Java.
Would you really do that? If you get the students who learned to program at school and not before it, you're pretty much screwed already anyway - except perhaps for the one or two exceptional students who can actually learn (I'm assuming they exist, but I've never seen proof of that)
Yes. Especially with a co-op program. It just seems to be good business sense. Would an Italian restaurant hire a cook who only knows how to cook Chinese food?
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PIEBALDconsult wrote:
A student who has the programming bug will likely know more than one language whether the school teaches it or not.
In that early part of school, I knew only C/C++. Granted, I may just be a sole individual or whatever that thought it more important to learn more about a single language than cast my nets at the time into other languages.
Well, if you learn only one programming language, let it be C/C++. :-D
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Yes. Especially with a co-op program. It just seems to be good business sense. Would an Italian restaurant hire a cook who only knows how to cook Chinese food?
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PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Or don't agree to take on co-op students from a school that only teaches Java.
Would you really do that? If you get the students who learned to program at school and not before it, you're pretty much screwed already anyway - except perhaps for the one or two exceptional students who can actually learn (I'm assuming they exist, but I've never seen proof of that)
Perhaps your experiences have lead you down that path, but I wouldn't be so cynical to think that a student would be unwilling to learn.
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Yes. Especially with a co-op program. It just seems to be good business sense. Would an Italian restaurant hire a cook who only knows how to cook Chinese food?
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Would an Italian restaurant hire a cook who only knows how to cook Chinese food?
If both parties knew what they were getting into and the cook was paid appropriately, why not? Ultimately, good programmers (as with most professions) are people who intend to constantly grow and learn new things. Typically, you can pick those people out of a crowd.
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Perhaps your experiences have lead you down that path, but I wouldn't be so cynical to think that a student would be unwilling to learn.
Well that's just what I see every day - they learn the bare minimum to pass a course with lowest possible grade that lets them pass, do no programming at home and are not even interested in learning things that are not in the curriculum. But there are exceptions to every rule, of course..
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Well that's just what I see every day - they learn the bare minimum to pass a course with lowest possible grade that lets them pass, do no programming at home and are not even interested in learning things that are not in the curriculum. But there are exceptions to every rule, of course..
Well that's just sad. I'm glad to say that I haven't had the same experience.
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Paul Conrad wrote:
I second that. After going through Java in college, C# was cakewalk.
Funny, I experienced the reverse - after learning C#, going through Java in college was a cakewalk.
I could see Java being easy to learn after learning C#. Since they both have their close similarities, I imagine after knowing one of them, learning the other is easy.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham