Jenny:

I would be very interested in your comments on the article below. It seems to highlight the point that we should rather be teaching people to programme, than teaching them a particular programme. Are you aware of any research that proves or disproves this assertion? It is important for me to know because I am inundated with requests by software vendors to promote the idea that students get taught particular certifications whilst still at university. If there is a case to be made to rather be driving programmes to teach good fundamentals, then we could work together to raise funding from the SETAs etc for short courses etc to provide the basics to unemployed graduates and individuals who want to work in IT or who are finding their current skills are obsolete.

The ‘Anti-Java’ Professor and the Jobless Programmers
James Maguire
07/29/2008

This article can be found online at the following location:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/3761921/The+Anti-Java+Professor+and+the+Jobless+Programmers.htm

….
My Response:

This piece has been through the washer a few times, so I’ll be brief on that part: this poor person grew up when flight software was the most complex thing going and for that you need real-time guarantees which Java cannot give you due to garbage collection, he confuses Java with Javascript as well by the looks of it and is clearly blissfully unaware that most of the server-side coding for pretty much any internet related service is now in Java…and if he thinks those systems are not complex he clearly hasn’t seen how Twitter handles 95M tweets in a day or 1100 a second. Ah and the old outsourcing thing…this guy wrote the article when people in the US still outsourced programming jobs, they don’t do it nearly as much anymore…because outsourcing programming jobs DOESN’T WORK!! South African firms will learn this the hard way too.

On to your real question, one needs to teach students to program, but sadly one must pick a language for that and my view is you pick the language that makes it simple for them to learn, which means clear semantics (and strongly typed) and good tool support. Java has this in spades, so in my opinion it is a no-brainer to teach students Java.

Another thing about programming or more specifically good programmers is that people are not born good programmers, to become good at it you need experience and experience you only gain from making mistakes, which in turn you only get by doing lots of programming. So by implication, Universities really cannot teach students to be good programmers, at best we can show them the basics and let them program as much as possible…and once they have spent a few years in the real-world they will (hopefully) be good. Thus teaching students Java puts them slightly ahead, since that means they will be faster on the programming curve since so many people use Java, and they might get to be a good programmer slightly faster than someone that was taught, say C for example, and then in the outside world used only Java (and thus wasted time getting to know Java).

Now on to my pet peeve! These software vendors that want students certified in whatever they are selling don’t have the students’ best interest at heart, they simply want more people locked into their brand. Show me a good programmer that wants to have a Microsoft or Cisco, or XXX certification, they don’t need it…they have jobs coming out of their ears. Which leaves us with another sad truth, up-skilling people without jobs means we are talking about people that cannot program, since if they could they would not be jobless. Needless to say the certifications will not make them good programmers either, but maybe it will give them a short-term job…until that skill is no longer needed and then they need to do the next certification I do however leave the option open that there are people with the potential of being good programmers, but are now, say, music teachers, but I don’t think being certified in something will make them good programmers…they need to be taught the basics just like all the other students coming through the system.

I’m all for short courses in new technologies, but not to people without a programming background. If the SETAs can support that I’m happy and will gladly participate…however for people that cannot program one needs LONG courses first.

In summary:

1. Nothing wrong with Java
2. Teach students how to program, and then let them program, and program, and program, …
3. People promoting outsourcing of programming jobs, clearly haven’t done it yet
4. Don’t come within a mile of Stellenbosch CS if you want our students certified in using your product
5. We’ll teach you a short-course on how to use Hadoop for doing MapReduce, but we will not teach you how to configure a Cisco router!

“The temperature was 25⁰C at 05:30 at the starting point on the beach and by 09:30 it was 41⁰C on the route. At 12:00 it was 43⁰C on the route. This is probably the worst heat that you have run a race in and hopefully the worst you will ever run in. Those of you who bailed, probably made a better decision than those who finished, but it is understandable that many runners were trying to qualify for Two Oceans, and that is the only reason why the race was not called off at around 10:00, when the referees seriously considered to do it.”

On the 19th I ran my first marathon, starting  in the Weskus Nature reserve and finishing in Langebaan.  I finished in 4h40, which was quite reasonable given that it was around 40C for the vast majority of the race.

Brink and I spent the previous day picking up our registrations and heading for a campsite in Veldrif  (about 20 mins from the start) where we had a lot of fun trying to pitch our tents. The plan was for us to stay there, run the next morning and then for the families to come join us for a camping weekend. Eventually we got the tents standing just enough to sleep in and headed for a great little restaurant/bar called Soverby Lapa close to Dwarskersbos. The meal included a Jerry Springer-like scene at the next table where a rather fat woman was berating her Russian lover for only wanting to love her, once she lost wait.

It wasn’t hard to get up at 4am in the morning since I didn’t sleep at all, which was a combination of the fact that I was nervous about the race, my air-mattress didn’t inflate and our neighbors in the campground was up all night until 4.30am when we drove off. When we got to where the buses had to pick us up for the 45mins ride to the start, we were told that not all the scheduled buses turned up and we’d have to wait till the ones that already left came back to pick us up, and that the race will be delayed. After about 90 mins the buses came and we all squeezed in to the first 4 even though it turned out there were a lot more buses than we thought.  As we got close to the start we were shocked to see runners already running! Turned out the organizers decided to run 2 races, one for those there at 6h30, the original start time, and another for the 400-odd that came in the second wave.

We started at 7h40 and the first hour was bliss, the second hour started to get quite hot and when the 18 & 21km water stations ran out of water things started to look bleak. Since there was an out and back loop at that point they used the same station for both stops and that obviously didn’t cater for enough water! That meant that between 15km and 25km there was only 1 stop and that one didn’t’ have enough water.

At 23km I started walking for the first time. Brink was about 12 mins ahead of me at this point. I waqs about as happy as one person could be when I got to the 25km water-hole and luckily the people there were waiting with ice-water to pour over the runners…they even had beer there, but I passed on that. After that I ran mostly but walked a lot until abo0ut 30kms when my second wind came and I ran most of the way from about 31km till 39km where the massive hill was. This thing was called the Black Mamba every few meters you will see a picture of the mamba with a sign saying you conquered the tail now only 400m to go, then you are at the head, just 100m to go, etc. I walked up uit as fast as I could and probably passed 30 people.

During this 30-39km stretch it became apparent that people were not taking the heat well and the ambulances came flying passed with stricken runners in them. A few bus loads of people that gave up further back also came by.  The last 2km after the top of the Black Mamba was steep downhill to the finish.  This was the only time I had physical discomfort since I small blister started forming on the bottom of my right foot and every step made it worse. I almost cried when I came around the last bend, the feeling that I actually survived this ordeal was quite an emotional experience.

Turns out about 650 people finished the first race that started at 6h30 and only about 170 finished the second race that started at 7h40.  My guess is that at least 400 people started the second race, which would mean more than 1/2 didn’t make it to the end. Brink came in 44th (4h15) and my time of 4h40 was good enough for 81st. Overall I was 336th out of about 812 finishers (Brink was 180th) and about 1200 entered the race.

After finishing I walked back to where the car was supposed to be, but after walking for about 1km I realized it wasn’t there and that Brink must have moved it. So I headed back where I found first the car by the finish and then Brink by the massage tables. I felt quite good with no stiffness at all, not even after the next night’s sleep. Quite shocking, given how bad I felt after my first half-marathon in San Jose in 2008.

Next big race will be the Voet van Afrika Marathon in October 2011.

We camped the night, but the next morning it was a bit rainy so we all packed up and did a potjie at our house instead!