home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.java,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk
- Path: hkuxa.hku.hk!h9290246
- From: h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras)
- Subject: Re: Will Java kill C++?
- Message-ID: <DpJyGG.FKK@hkuxb.hku.hk>
- Sender: usenet@hkuxb.hku.hk (USENET News System)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: hkuxa.hku.hk
- Organization: The University of Hong Kong
- X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
- References: <31682FFE.2781E494@bbn.com>
- Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 16:43:27 GMT
-
- Joe Kraska (jkraska@bbn.com) wrote:
- >
- >I agree with this setiment whole-heartedly! I recently interviewed a
- >graduating cs major, who claimed to be 'very good' with C programming.
- >This naturally led me to probe into his knowledge of dynamic memory
- >allocation, because mastery of dynamic memory is what seperates good
- >programmers from bad ones in C.
- >
- >My first question was 'show me how to allocate an array of pointers to
- >strings'. His response was, 'huh?'. After asking a few more questions
- >it turned out he understood dynamic memory not at all. Amazing to me
- >how you could get through a CS program in todays world without learning
- >linked lists, hash tables, b trees, ad nauseum. But so it was.
- >
- >There are, of course, many working professionals out there who use C
- >but really don't understand dynamic memory. Maybe JAVA is for them. The
- >dumb-down language of the 90's.
-
- I don't get your point.
- I am certainly not a very good C programmer (well, passable but I am mostly
- Assembly-ist and Forth-ist) but I cannot imagine how someone cannot
- learn how to use pointers or dynamic allocation.
- Are there really such people around who call themselves programmers?
- [I always thought that languages that hide these details [like how to
- allocate such and such on dynamic storage] were designed to be used
- by non-programmers (eg. someone wants to write something simple
- at home, does not want to spend countless number of hours on it
- so learns something like BASIC where you don't have to worry about
- how your strings are stored).
- On the other hand when CS programs begin with teaching LISP at the first
- year what do you expect ????????????
-
- Andras
-
-