[wffurr]

The sheer amount of nonsensical boilerplate required in any Java program, even trivial ones, makes it a terrible language for teaching Computer Science.

Think about trying to teach the meaning of "public class Foo { public static void main(String[] args) { ... }}" to a complete novice. Class-based design, inheritance, visibility, return types, arrays, etc. all right off the bat. It's too much.

Scheme and Python both are much better choices for this alone.

[jksmith]

Some snarky drift: Then post-college commercial reality sets in, where using mind numbing boilerplate supported by frameworks and heavy ides (as opposed to libraries, custom or otherwise, and an editor), is SOP. Join the programming masses and literally think inside the box(es). So why did you go to college now?

[int_19h]

So that you can realize that you're inside a box, and leave it on those few opportunities that present themselves (and, perhaps, specifically seek out such opportunities).