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Comment by cyjackx | Hacker News Reader

I remember when I first learned Java, having to just accept "public static void main(String[] args)" before I understood what any of it was. All I knew was that went on top around the block and I did the code inside it.

Should people really understand every syntax there before learning simpler commands like printing, ifs, and loops? I think it would yes, be a nicer learning experience, but I'm not sure it's actually the best idea.

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If you need to learn "public static void main(String[] args)" just to print to a screen or use a loop, means you're using the wrong language.

When it's time to learn Java you're supposed to be past the basics. Old-school intros to programming starts with flowcharts for a reason.

You can learn either way, of course, but with one, people get tied up to a particular language-specific model and then have all kinds of discomfort when it's time to switch.

For most programming books, the first chapter where they teach you Hello, World is mostly about learning how to install the tooling. Then it goes back to explain variables, conditional,... They rarely throws you into code if you're a beginner.

I mean, I didn't need to learn those things, they were just in whatever web GUI I originally learned on; all I knew was that I could ignore it for now, a la the topic. Should the UI have masked that from me until I was ready? I suppose so, but even then I was doing things in an IDE not really knowing what those things were for until much later.

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