JEP 495 Question

[Ethan McCue]

> but that kind-of implies that we need to first conduct a pedagogical
debate to establish what we think is the "correct" way to teach the Java
programming language.

And maybe also have the hard, most-of-us-are-not-qualified-for-but-oh-well,
conversations about how this would actually trickle through the educational
industrial complex(es).

Same as we wouldn't publish a class without Javadocs, features made for
educators without the requisite curriculums and advice on how to apply them
feel incomplete.


On Fri, Nov 8, 2024 at 11:04 AM Archie Cobbs <archie.cobbs at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 8, 2024 at 9:24 AM Ethan McCue <ethan at mccue.dev> wrote:
>
>> The *goal* is seems more akin to "improve the experience of learning and
>> teaching java as a first language".
>>
>
> You make good points - but that kind-of implies that we need to first
> conduct a pedagogical debate to establish what we think is the "correct"
> way to teach the Java programming language. Only then would we be able to
> properly design features to support that goal. Of course I'm putting
> "correct" in air quotes because that's probably not a resolvable debate.
>
> I don't want to have that debate (I'm not a teacher), but I can speak from
> personal experience. I understand things best when I can focus on learning
> one self-consistent, well-defined layer of abstraction at a time. Once each
> layer is mastered, you can then have the "big reveal" of the next layer
> underneath ("opening the hood)" and then learn how that next layer supports
> the one above that you already know and understand. Then, rinse & repeat.
>
> You can also go in the other direction, i.e., from the bottom up. For
> example, you might learn digital logic, then counters & flip flops, then
> adding and shifting, then instruction fetch, then CPU's, then assembly
> language, then memory management, then operating systems, then C/C++, then
> Java, etc. etc.
>
> The "on-ramp" metaphor instead implies you are learning one big layer of
> abstraction by gradually reducing the number of "simplifying tricks", so
> the complexity increases step-by-step. The layer of abstraction you start
> with is a simplified mirage that keeps changing over time. I'm sure that
> can work too, but it's a different way of teaching and learning & because
> it seems weird to me it probably works better in practice :)
>
> I'm definitely NOT anti-JEP 495. My point is simply that if the goal is
> "improve the experience of learning and teaching java as a first language"
> then that implies some presumptions about how that teaching will be
> conducted, and it's worth pondering those presumptions. If all the CS
> teachers of the world are united in saying "this is how we do it" then
> that's probably sufficient.
>
> -Archie
>
> --
> Archie L. Cobbs
>
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