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Comment by javanix | Hacker News Reader

You make a good point - I was thinking that Java shouldn't be taught in introductory CS classes for people planning to be a CS major, but obviously didn't get that across.

It would be fairly easy for someone to learn Java once they've been taught C. Professors should not have to spend time going over pointers and memory management in an OS class, however.

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I think OS classes are the best place to cover pointers and memory management. Assuming you are covering how how an OS works vs an intro to UNIX class.

Granted in our OS theory class we spent most of our time using / talking about ASM, but C could also work fairly well.

This course has four purposes. First, you will learn about the hierarchy of abstractions and implementations that comprise a modern computer system. This will provide a conceptual framework that you can then flesh out with courses such as compilers, operating systems, networks, and others. The second purpose is to demystify the machine and the tools that we use to program it. This includes telling you the little details that students usually have to learn by osmosis. In combination, these two purposes will give you the background to understand many different computer systems. The third purpose is to bring you up to speed in doing systems programming in a low-level language in the Unix environment. The final purpose is to prepare you for upper-level courses in systems. This is a learn-by-doing kind of class. You will write pieces of code, compile them, debug them, disassemble them, measure their performance, optimize them, etc.

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~bmd/cs213-f03/docs/syllabus....

At my school, between an intro class that did C and a class where we programmed microcontrollers in assembly, pointers and bit-twiddling were already pretty well established by the time we get to OS classes.

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