Java is a good intermediate step as a first serious programming language - it has good compile time messages, and even more importantly, it has pretty much full runtime safety, which is absent from python, c, javascript et alia. With these languages students will struggle with code that seem to work, yet are faulty - it is better to fail with an “ugly” but readable exceptions during development, than to not do anything just get wrong results (either type errors, non-intuitive conversions, or straight up memory corruption)
Also, java is a tiny language, I really don’t get your point. Sure, hello world requires 3 lines of boilerplate, but other than that you have pretty much listed every single java feature there is. How many languages’ feature list can you enumerate in a rant?
> Also, java is a tiny language, I really don’t get your point. Sure, hello world requires 3 lines of boilerplate, but other than that you have pretty much listed every single java feature there is. How many languages’ feature list can you enumerate in a rant?
I wasn't enumerating all of the features of the language, but by saying so you basically proved my point. I was enumerating all of the features of the language present in the very first "Hello World" program. It's not about 3 lines, it's about the density of over a dozen concepts packed into those three lines. That's what people mean when they say to do anything in Java you have to know everything about Java.
> Write LOGO first, or scratch then.
Logo and scratch are great first languages, and they spark joy and imagination in children. Then they move to Java and it sucks the inspiration right out of them. Honestly I think students, teachers, and everyone except Java shops would be better off if students started with Logo turtle graphics in elementary school and used it throughout middle and high school as the capable Lisp that it is. Yes we won't graduate as many object oriented Java programmers, but... well I guess there is no but, I really can't see the downside in what I just said.
Java ain’t having many more features. Besides primitives, everything is a class with fields and methods. The static keyword decides whether the field/method is per-class or per-instance, and you can create instances with the new keyword. Sure, there is some play here with OOP-features, but java is a really concise language. Feel free to compare it to C#, Python for example. Good luck explaining why an empty list as a default argument is problematic in the latter’s case. Let alone OOP features in Python.
Java, the language is on the order of complexity of C.
> Besides primitives, everything is a class with fields and methods. The static keyword decides whether the field/method is per-class or per-instance, and you can create instances with the new keyword.
Are you a professional programmer or a teacher?
The perspective you are sharing with me tells me you're a professional programmer who already understands all of this and finds it obvious and easy. The quoted sentence would be absolute gibberish to students.
> Everything is a fleeb with blips and blops. The slorp rump decides whether the blip/blop is per-fleeb or per-glorm, and you can create glorms with the klob rump.
Simple right? How obvious! You say it as if it's all so easy, but it takes a long time to explain all of these concepts. Students are usually very confused about the difference between a field/variable and object and a class, a function versus a method versus a static method... these concepts are quite nuanced and the differences are subtle to students, yet you are breezing past them like they are nothing or obvious.
> Java is a really concise language.
Concise: giving a lot of information clearly and in a few words. Maybe not clearly, but a lot of information in a few words is accurate. And that's the problem. Kids need a little information followed by a lot of examples and explanation. Giving kids subtle nuanced concepts and expecting them to recognize the depth of those concepts without articulating it is a recipe for disaster.
Java is a good intermediate step as a first serious programming language - it has good compile time messages, and even more importantly, it has pretty much full runtime safety, which is absent from python, c, javascript et alia. With these languages students will struggle with code that seem to work, yet are faulty - it is better to fail with an “ugly” but readable exceptions during development, than to not do anything just get wrong results (either type errors, non-intuitive conversions, or straight up memory corruption)
Also, java is a tiny language, I really don’t get your point. Sure, hello world requires 3 lines of boilerplate, but other than that you have pretty much listed every single java feature there is. How many languages’ feature list can you enumerate in a rant?