My experience with IO.print() and IO.println()

[Rob Ross]

I was this person for years, nay, decades. And it held me back. It might be
related to my ADHD. But I would *strongly* suggest you try to train these
types of students to become comfortable with temporarily not knowing
something. Once I learned to do this, my ability to learn really
experienced exponential growth. My mental model of this concept is the
"forward reference" in programming. It's like an IOU to the compiler -
"This is an important function and I promise I will it explain it to you in
detail when you're ready, but for now trust me that it exists and does the
thing it says it will do."

Sometimes you can decrease the cognitive load on the learner by hiding
complexity from them, as when one starts to learn about strings in C and a
good teacher will provide a `typedef  char* string`, or what has been done
with IO.print. But still, learning to be comfortable with being
uncomfortable is a critical life skill.

- Rob

On Tue, Nov 25, 2025 at 4:15 AM David Alayachew <davidalayachew at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello @amber-dev <amber-dev at openjdk.org>,
>
> For example, there are a certain "type" of students that have a brain that
> REFUSES to accept new info until they understand ALL details of what's in
> front of them.
>
>
>
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