I always have this opinion: Teaching Java as the first programming language to a Computer Science graduate even before teaching the fundamentals of computers and computing, is not going to produce any quality developers and computer science professionals. Of late I started comparing this with how 20-20 is spoiling cricket.
Why is teaching Java as the first programming language a Twenty-Twenty affair? Simply because when you throw open a gamut of libraries and ask a developer to use it to program his application without even teaching the fundamentals of algorithms, why libraries are needed, how to develop modular and object oriented systems etc., he forgets to think what happens behind the scenes and how those libraries are implemented, in what thread context a particular interface method is invoked by the run-time, how are the Java threads implemented, how are they scheduled etc.,.
Compare this with introducing Twenty-Twenty to young kids who learn to play cricket. They will start forgetting that the fundamentals of cricket lie in a solid defense, strong temperament, concentration and will power to last against the odds. Classic case is Yuvraj Singh who seems all lost when facing quality opposition in test cricket.
I don’t have anything against Java as a programming language. But when I see engineers claiming to be “expert Java programmers” lack even the basic skills it becomes very tough to manage a product with them. They increasingly struggle while trouble shooting issues. Even if they study the java documentation and go through it they don’t understand how it works. It is for this reason; I discourage recruiting the so called “Java experts” without sound fundamentals.
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