Java-ization of schools, from Joel

steve@waits.net (Stephen Waits) — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 15:07:00 -0600

Joel rambles on The Perils of JavaSchools.

I completely agree with him. Maybe it’s just because I’m old? But maybe it’s because I’ve seen it first-hand too.

One time, when I worked at Stormfront Studios, Inc., I accompanied our HR Manager on a recruiting trip to Harvey Mudd. We arranged our visit with the career center and asked them to line up 20 or 30 appropriate candidates. I didn’t really know anything about Mudd, though I guess I should have, it’s apparently a top SoCal engineering school.

I also had no idea that they’d switched their curriculum to “all Java all the time”, an exaggeration to be certain. I learned about the switch as I interviewed the first few candidates. These Senior level students basically, well, they knew Java.

Without getting too nasty, I’ll just say that we left with no second interviews planned. It may be a great school, and I’m sure some bright kids come out of there (after all, you truly get out of your education what you put into it); however, we sure didn’t get any glimpse of it on our visit.

I headed back home disgusted with the Java-switch, appalled, and thoughtless as to why any university actually believed it to be a good thing for their students.

Joel’s put a lot of sound thought into that why in his article. There’s an undercurrent of great advice in there. Forget Java, learn how to freaking program.

swaits.com: Java-ization of schools, from Joel

Java-ization of schools, from Joel