[Flipside]

I fully agree that memory optimisation and control is indeed a prime factor in coding efficiently, I also agree that automatic memory management has speed issues, however, there are disadvantages and advantages to both techniques, certainly, for a fancy program, like a 3D Game or the like, manual memory management has its advantages (though even this is getting reduced in the sheer speed of modern systems), however, from a coding point of view, C++ coders have enough time looking for memory leaks to learn to hate doing it. Now, the worlds greatest coder would never leave a memory hole, but when a large percentage of the business market is not looking for fancy programs, only fast, easy to use and easy to alter solutions, then in those respects languages like Java or even Visual Basic actually have a considerable use.

Edit: To put it in Layman's terms, I was hoping my idea would be do-able in C#, not because I can't do all the memory management stuff, but because, quite frankly, I don't want to have to, yes, it's faster executing, yes, it's more professional and yes, it's a frustrating PITA that Id avoid if at all possible As it is, I think the memory management speed and lack of portability are suggesting that C++ may be the better option.

[Scooby_Doo]

I could see java, vb or C# taught as 101 & 102 classes, as a starter course.  You don't need to know about memory management at that point.  However at 103 and/or up switch to C/C++ and learn memory management and also do assembly.  That way you have an understanding of how a program works so you won't be battling over pointers when your still trying to figure out while-loops.

[Kazan]

i'm not saying automatic memory management is a bad thing, i'm saying languages with it as default are a bad teaching tool, because the new programers in the making don't learn things they should be learning

java and "performance" don't go in the same sentance

[Scooby_Doo]

But at what point should they learn that about memory management? Definintely not in an intro class, besides intro classes aren't used by just CS majors only.  Also they should probably learn how to debug before venturing into memory management, that way they'll have an understanding of how to fix an assignment they're working on, instead of getting frustated because they can't get it to work. (been there done that LOL)

[Hippo]

There's a reason nobody pays for Java based programs.

[karajorma]

Yeah. The reason is cause they do. They pay large amounts of money for them.

@ some of the moronic comments about Java on this thread.

[Nuke]

netware was written in java, and i doubt it was free

[Mika]

anyone with a software engineering degree that doesn't know how to do memory management has a degree not worth the paper it is printed on..

memory management is one of the BASIC requisites of ANY fancy program.   Automatically memory managers sometimes have undesirably behavior at critical points.[let's not talk about java, because it's just a performance ****hole end to end]

Amen. I have horrible experiences with automatic memory management in Scheme, which doesn't seem to function well under any sort of processor load.

The problem, as I see, is that if code is finished unoptimized, the end result is slow, which of course can be covered with faster machines. This on the other hand, drives up the demand on faster hardware, while the software could have been made to run on lower end systems if coders would have bothered.

Can I just say that 15 years ago, old men were complaining that programming was dying because people were learning C instead of traditional COBOL, Pascal or Assembly language? Whlst there are certainly advantages to understanding C++, this is beginning to sound more like 'I had to do it, so why shouldn't they?'.

Unfortunately it is not that from my point of view. I see the memory access and allocation as a only way to code efficient programs in scientific computing, or anything related to graphics in general.

Mika

[Kazan]

Unfortunately it is not that from my point of view. I see the memory access and allocation as a only way to code efficient programs in scientific computing, or anything related to graphics in general.

Mika

 

make them learn the hard way.. then they can learn to use the "nice" languages with automagic stuff


people pay through the TEETH for java programs... yet i cringe every time i run across a website running java - because i know it's going to take me 10x longer to load that page than the longest possible acceptable runtime for a generated page