The 'Anti-Java' Professor and the Jobless Programmers

CS grads who want jobs, or self-taught programmers would be better off learning Java than Ada or C.

Java is the new COBOL. Large companies write their back-office applications in Java. The largest amount of third party free libraries exist for Java - e.g. numerous Apache projects. The most popular free development environment tools are oriented towards Java - e.g. Eclipse and NetBeans. The most popular free unit test environment is oriented towards Java - JUnit. The most popular continuous integration environment is oriented towards Java - Hudson. The most popular complex, free build tools are oriented towards Java - Ant and Maven. The most popular mobile phone platform is programmed in Java - Android. The second most popular phone platform is programmed in Objective-C which is closer to Java than to C in syntax and programming style.

Back in the late 1960's, CS departments eschewed COBOL and instead taught FORTRAN. I never was paid for programming in FORTRAN but I made a very good living for twenty years programming in COBOL - which I self-taught.

Mr. Dewar is right to emphasize theory but he is too close to the US military's ADA language - and I think is disconnected from the business world where most of the programmer employment takes place. ADA went nowhere commercially and Mr. Dewar is living in the past.

Teach students skills that will get them a job - how else to pay off those massive student loans?