Re: Teaching Java, teaching what?
On 12/8/2013 11:00 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:
Many Java classes and Java books teach Java foundations and
then Java OOP to finally be able to show how Swing can be
used to create programs that look like beginners expect
programs to look like, i.e., they do not write some text to
an old-fashioned text console, but run as a GUI windows.
But then, I hear everywhere: ?Java on the Desktop is dead.?.
Now I asked myself: Is it wrong to teach how to write Java
desktop applications in a class (using Swing)? After all,
you do not want to waste the time of the students by
teaching them something that is ?dead??
"Believe ninety percent of what you see, fifty percent of
what you read, and ten percent of what you hear."
That was my father's dictum when I was quite young, long
before the Internet came along (had the Internet been around,
he would surely have moved "fifty percent" to a lower figure).
Anyhow, he'd have said that what you "hear everywhere" is only
ten percent reliable, so although you should pay it some heed
you shouldn't let it influence you too strongly.
My own take (uninformed; peg this somewhere between the
ten- and fifty-percent level) is that Java applets have shown
themselves to be too dangerous for the lawless Net. This does
not, however, equate to "Java on the desktop is dead." Both
applets and Java Web Start *in a controlled environment* can
be safe and useful. Use them on the inTRAnet if you like, as
a way to deploy in-house applications. Also, Swing can put a
perfectly adequate (albeit not fancy) GUI on an application
launched from the desktop rather than in a browser, should you
wish to do so.
Does this make a case for, or a case against, teaching Swing?
Sorry; for that question I don't have even a ten-percent answer.
--
Eric Sosman
esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid