Wow. I don't know about you, but I have yet to meet someone who came right out of college and wrote their own OS without any previos programming experience. I think the bigger point is being missed here :
Yes, if you have graduated college, worked in the field for awhile, and all you know is Java, then your skillset is necessarily limited.
However, as someone who recently graduated with a BS in CIS, I must say that I consider myself fortunate to have attended a University that teaches hands-on instead of theory. We were introduced to a number of languages. But if I was tasked with learning C or C++ right out of the gate, I probably would have dropped out. Classes like those I took that taught VB and Java served simply as tools to help me gain a better understanding of logic, data structures, and good programming practices.
To those who say "if you only know Java, you can't hope to do anything in C++", I say that more than once, I helped my buddies in their electrical and computer engineering courses with their C++ because I knew the CONCEPTS, and for that, I think Java is as good a language as any.
Will someone who doesn't know C or C++ be able to use pointers? No.
Will someone who doesn't know C or C++ be able to code their own OS? No.
But how many people, coming right out of college, are tasked with such things? If they do not have the motivation to learn new languages, it will show over time. But to categorically dismiss them because they don't know C or C++ is to me shallow and arrogant.
But hey - I'm just a programmer who has worked in the financial services, software services, and health insurance industries with the skills I have, which don't include an intimate knowledge of C++ - so what do I know, right?
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Let's hear it for all of us in good ol' AZ... And everyone thinks we're just a bunch of outlaws!
Wow. I don't know about you, but I have yet to meet someone who came right out of college and wrote their own OS without any previos programming experience. I think the bigger point is being missed here :
Yes, if you have graduated college, worked in the field for awhile, and all you know is Java, then your skillset is necessarily limited.
However, as someone who recently graduated with a BS in CIS, I must say that I consider myself fortunate to have attended a University that teaches hands-on instead of theory. We were introduced to a number of languages. But if I was tasked with learning C or C++ right out of the gate, I probably would have dropped out. Classes like those I took that taught VB and Java served simply as tools to help me gain a better understanding of logic, data structures, and good programming practices.
To those who say "if you only know Java, you can't hope to do anything in C++", I say that more than once, I helped my buddies in their electrical and computer engineering courses with their C++ because I knew the CONCEPTS, and for that, I think Java is as good a language as any.
Will someone who doesn't know C or C++ be able to use pointers? No. Will someone who doesn't know C or C++ be able to code their own OS? No. But how many people, coming right out of college, are tasked with such things? If they do not have the motivation to learn new languages, it will show over time. But to categorically dismiss them because they don't know C or C++ is to me shallow and arrogant.
But hey - I'm just a programmer who has worked in the financial services, software services, and health insurance industries with the skills I have, which don't include an intimate knowledge of C++ - so what do I know, right?