[The Real Slim Shady]

Has anyone ever heard of this programming language? As part of my university study im required to take an "Introduction to Programming" lecture that apparently uses this language. From all my googling it seems to have been designed by a single person for use in his courses at various universities he's taught at as those are the only resources ive found

Apparently it is basically Java. (which i cant say i liked doing in my last intro to prog. course)

Any ways... this isnt the first time ive been taught a unique language specifically designed to teach programming. Any one else have this experience? Do you find this easier to learn with? Personally I believe they should just pick a language and teach it. if its java then its java... but teaching, even if its just the principles of another language, a language that you will NEVER use again is a waste of time imo. what do you think?

[Deque]

This is what the website says:

MaSH introduces new programmers to Java using staged subsets of the language. The system specifies several clearly specified subsets of the Java language that eliminate the boilerplate that interferes with early learning of the purely procedural aspects of the Java language

The code examples there show that there is no need to use classes or a main method, so you can just start programming without wondering what a class is.

I didn't knew of it before and I don't think MaSH is in any way an important language.
At our university they teach Java with greenfoot. I think the same way as you do. I don't like those training wheels.

[The Real Slim Shady]

but i mean really how difficult is the concept of a main method. or a class for that matter? I mean i taught myself imperative/procedural programming many years ago and thats how ive always coded. its how my mind works, i find it logical lol. that doesnt mean though that i cant grasp the oop concepts and advantages or apply them if needed, its just not how im comfortable coding. so i dont really see the point of what seems to me is like removing oop from an oop language in order to teach an oop language, LOL

without classes are you not just teaching procedural programming? i believe today if i was learning my first language id want it to be oop from the outset.

Not to mention that if you are stuck on a problem... you cant just google it. the only resources youd have is what you learned. if you didnt learn it you're SOL until the next class?

I was kinda excited about taking another programming class... just because its been so long since ive done any real coding and i feel so out of practice. trouble remembering even the basics sometimes haha. but im a little disappointed in this course.

[Deque]

Procedural programming is easier in the beginning. When I started with programming, we were taught Java and C at the same time. (I always got confused because of that and mixed up commands, but that just besides). I liked C more than Java at this time, because I understood everything I wrote. In Java it was really a bit of a problem that I had to memorize some code that I didn't understand a bit, but was necessary to get a program even started. I didn't had a clue about that public static and args in the main method, I didn't know what a class was. I didn't know why I had to write System.out.println which seemed way more complicated and less memorizeable than printf.
These concepts are easier to grasp, once you know procedural programming, but I didn't really know programming at all at that time.

Nevertheless I still think that this is something you can deal with and learning commands from greenfoot or MaSH that aren't Java at all and that I have to unlearn later won't help at all.
I think people should start without an IDE, they should use a texteditor and a console to compile their programs and that's it. At my second year at university I still didn't know how to compile a Java program using a console which is pretty sad looking back at it. I think people should learn this from the ground up and not from the top looking down and not understanding anything.

[Linuxephus™]

Procedural programming is easier in the beginning. When I started with programming, we were taught Java and C at the same time. (I always got confused because of that and mixed up commands, but that just besides). I liked C more than Java at this time, because I understood everything I wrote. In Java it was really a bit of a problem that I had to memorize some code that I didn't understand a bit, but was necessary to get a program even started. I didn't had a clue about that public static and args in the main method, I didn't know what a class was. I didn't know why I had to write System.out.println which seemed way more complicated and less memorizeable than printf.
These concepts are easier to grasp, once you know procedural programming, but I didn't really know programming at all at that time.

Nevertheless I still think that this is something you can deal with and learning commands from greenfoot or MaSH that aren't Java at all and that I have to unlearn later won't help at all.
I think people should start without an IDE, they should use a texteditor and a console to compile their programs and that's it. At my second year at university I still didn't know how to compile a Java program using a console which is pretty sad looking back at it. I think people should learn this from the ground up and not from the top looking down and not understanding anything.

Excellent.
Because when you yourself start teaching, you can apply those very principles by conveying them directly to your pupils to save them a majority of needlessly complicated teaching methods that only cause confusion with you as they did when you first started out in the programming field.

[The Real Slim Shady]

Nevertheless I still think that this is something you can deal with and learning commands from greenfoot or MaSH that aren't Java at all and that I have to unlearn later won't help at all.

I think people should start without an IDE, they should use a texteditor and a console to compile their programs and that's it. At my second year at university I still didn't know how to compile a Java program using a console which is pretty sad looking back at it. I think people should learn this from the ground up and not from the top looking down and not understanding anything.

These are the two big points i agree with. First of all, the language they are teaching is useless... and second, its like, i dont expect to get a programming job while im still in first year university... but i might look for something in IT as a junior role or even internship. Being able to put an a recognizable language that i have experience with could be beneficial. putting something no one has ever heard of is not lol.

And i totally agree with your second paragraph. I learned on Borland's Turbo BASIC some 16 years ago now. No IDE whatsoever. hell i didnt even have the internet. i learned by reading a photocopy of a list of TB commands/functions whatever lol. I then moved onto VB4, then 6 then ASP, PHP, C++ etc. All this point and click and dragging forms. how the hell are you really going to learn how to code lol. Although tbh i havent coded much since about 2006 and ive gotten pretty shit at any of the languages i used to be decent in lol. constantly making noob mistakes now LOL. but id rather get back into the kind of programming that i used to do, and not some programming that will just further interfere with what i already knew? haha

[The Real Slim Shady]

Nevertheless I still think that this is something you can deal with and learning commands from greenfoot or MaSH that aren't Java at all and that I have to unlearn later won't help at all.

I think people should start without an IDE, they should use a texteditor and a console to compile their programs and that's it. At my second year at university I still didn't know how to compile a Java program using a console which is pretty sad looking back at it. I think people should learn this from the ground up and not from the top looking down and not understanding anything.

These are the two big points i agree with. First of all, the language they are teaching is useless... and second, its like, i dont expect to get a programming job while im still in first year university... but i might look for something in IT as a junior role or even internship. Being able to put an a recognizable language that i have experience with could be beneficial. putting something no one has ever heard of is not lol.

And i totally agree with your second paragraph. I learned on Borland's Turbo BASIC some 16 years ago now. No IDE whatsoever. hell i didnt even have the internet. i learned by reading a photocopy of a list of TB commands/functions whatever lol. I then moved onto VB4, then 6 then ASP, PHP, C++ etc. All this point and click and dragging forms. how the hell are you really going to learn how to code lol. Although tbh i havent coded much since about 2006 and ive gotten pretty shit at any of the languages i used to be decent in lol. constantly making noob mistakes now LOL. but id rather get back into the kind of programming that i used to do, and not some programming that will just further interfere with what i already knew? haha

[The Real Slim Shady]

Nevertheless I still think that this is something you can deal with and learning commands from greenfoot or MaSH that aren't Java at all and that I have to unlearn later won't help at all.

I think people should start without an IDE, they should use a texteditor and a console to compile their programs and that's it. At my second year at university I still didn't know how to compile a Java program using a console which is pretty sad looking back at it. I think people should learn this from the ground up and not from the top looking down and not understanding anything.

These are the two big points i agree with. First of all, the language they are teaching is useless... and second, its like, i dont expect to get a programming job while im still in first year university... but i might look for something in IT as a junior role or even internship. Being able to put an a recognizable language that i have experience with could be beneficial. putting something no one has ever heard of is not lol.

And i totally agree with your second paragraph. I learned on Borland's Turbo BASIC some 16 years ago now. No IDE whatsoever. hell i didnt even have the internet. i learned by reading a photocopy of a list of TB commands/functions whatever lol. I then moved onto VB4, then 6 then ASP, PHP, C++ etc. All this point and click and dragging forms. how the hell are you really going to learn how to code lol. Although tbh i havent coded much since about 2006 and ive gotten pretty shit at any of the languages i used to be decent in lol. constantly making noob mistakes now LOL. but id rather get back into the kind of programming that i used to do, and not some programming that will just further interfere with what i already knew? haha