but lack of teaching pointers and memory issues may be a downside

Proponents of those languages would say those were plus points rather than downers! My only problem with C# is the fact that it is - essentially (I know about Mono and all that) - limited to one platform.

I think you'll find that Smalltalk is still quite widely used (in the financial sector?) in the real world. Delphi, in its day, was great (even better was C++ Builder) but, as you say, a little past it now. I do like Smalltalk; everything is an object, even classes and metaclasses.

There is a temptation to use inheritance when "borrowing" as they call it in Smalltalk - embedding an instance of an object inside another object is a better choice. That's down to getting the initial model right.

The problem given is trivial so any form of OO could be considered OTT. I guess it depends upon whether the excercise was set as a general programming problem or a specific C++ problem. 9 weeks into a course I'd guess they'd have started on classes so it may be that it was set as an extremely simple example of how to use polymorphism rather than switch, or nested if, statements.

I found out that say if a call was made at 11:45 PM on Monday and finished at 12:10 AM (Program would also say called ended Tuesday), the discount will be applied to the whole call and not just the minutes that went over.

The way the course works is that its C++ first, followed by VB.net and finishing with Java.

In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

but lack of teaching pointers and memory issues may be a downside

Proponents of those languages would say those were plus points rather than downers!

When writing code yes - but when learning to program I think it is important for coders to understand what is happening below the hood so to speak - and it doesn't hurt to have to learn an element of displine that using pointers needs

In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

My only problem with C# is the fact that it is - essentially (I know about Mono and all that) - limited to one platform.

I am not sure that is a major issue for teaching people to code (a good coder should be able to apply their skills to learning other languages) - as long as they don't have to pay for visual studio that is

In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

I think you'll find that Smalltalk is still quite widely used (in the financial sector?)

I thought Java had pretty much taken over finance

In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

in the real world. Delphi, in its day, was great (even better was C++ Builder) but, as you say, a little past it now.

I am not sure past it - more out of fashion (not that it was ever really super fashionable)

The Win32 version of Delphi could do with some language updates - such as iterator for loops and template classes, but I think the .Net version (Delphi Prism) is getting such things as well as Free Pascal - though I think I'll probably be doing Java a lot more from now on. C++ builder on VCL is defintely better than MS C++ & MFC

yes - but they aren't (shouldn't be) part of day to day coding in C#, merely there to allow interactions with APIs etc.

Javascript is the best first language to learn. It's c based, loosely typed and is incredibly flexible. You can learn the basics of language structure and can get quick results from it. On top of that, to really use it well, you have to learn about prototypical inheritance, how that differs from classical languages and how you can simulate classical inheritance with it. It's a great way to learn OO. Once you've understood all that, moving on to C# is easy. It' is just a classical version of javascript, the syntax is almost identical(if a little more verbal in places).

This is the route I'm been taking, and it's pretty rewarding. Sure, you can learn the simple stuff in c++ before moving onto OO later, but you can't get any real results from it, just snippets of useless code. With javascript, you can write fairly effective Firefox add-ons with simple code, with c# you can make useful office addons and form apps, again with simple code. I remember reading through a C++ book about 5 years ago (principles and practice) and it was enough to put me off programming altogether.

Edited by deleted (Thu 10-Dec-09 14:25:58)

In reply to a post by Kenneth:

yes - but they aren't (shouldn't be) part of day to day coding in C#, merely there to allow interactions with APIs etc.

Yea, if you're using pointers regularly you're doing something wrong, but they are available to use if you want.

Javascript is the best first language to learn.

I think that tells me all I need to know.

In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

I think that tells me all I need to know.

Could have been worse - he could have said Ruby

... or even Perl. Fine languages in the correct context, but not for teaching purposes.