Another story to go with the author's story about people who fail a code test because of Java:
At MIT, in 2003, there was a class called 6.171 Software Engineering for Web Applications. The final project was, in fact, to design and make a web application. It was very open-ended and it could be in any language you wanted.
This particular course soon stopped being taught, because a large number of people failed the final project. They could not make an application that functioned in any way by the time the course was over. (Keep in mind: 2003. There weren't really any easy answers to web applications.)
Many people had chosen to do their project in Java, because that's what they had learned and used in the prerequisite course. And in particular, over half of the people who chose Java failed.
(By the way, the course on web applications is now the main project-based course on software engineering at MIT, and it is now taught in Ruby.)
> (By the way, the course on web applications is now the main project-based course on software engineering at MIT, and it is now taught in Ruby.)
Which one is that? As far as I can tell, the "new" 6.170 (6.S197) uses Python (or at least used it in the fall of 2011).
(I gather by its new subject number that it is no longer a part of the core requirements, being largely supplanted by 6.005, which ironically appears to use Java. Of course, when I took 6.170, we used CLU. Boy, am I old.)
What was wrong with using JSP? I dont see any thing in it that would stop a whole class full of MIT students (aren't hey supposed to be smart) from finishing their project
At MIT, in 2003, there was a class called 6.171 Software Engineering for Web Applications. The final project was, in fact, to design and make a web application. It was very open-ended and it could be in any language you wanted.
This particular course soon stopped being taught, because a large number of people failed the final project. They could not make an application that functioned in any way by the time the course was over. (Keep in mind: 2003. There weren't really any easy answers to web applications.)
Many people had chosen to do their project in Java, because that's what they had learned and used in the prerequisite course. And in particular, over half of the people who chose Java failed.
(By the way, the course on web applications is now the main project-based course on software engineering at MIT, and it is now taught in Ruby.)