[ht_th]

In my experience teaching introductory programming with Java, the problem is very real. For beginning programmers, making sense of the first Java program(s) results too often in misunderstanding of all sorts of concepts.

Of course, you can tell students to ignore most of the code until later in the course when they'll learn all about it, but that doesn't work. They'll make sense of the code within their limited understanding of programming and frames of reference. They'll build local theories of how and why these programming elements, like "static", "class", "main", "String[]" etc. fit together, how they relate to error messages they get when their programs don't compile or don't work.

Then, when they do reach the place in the course when they're to learn all about these concepts, they have to reconcile their own local theories with the material at hand to create a more thorough and evolved understanding of the concept. That's often not an easy process. In many introductory programming courses, there's not much time for reflection. As a result, their evolving understanding is likely closer to their initial understanding instead of the ones we aim at as teachers.

What's not helping here is that as experienced programmers who have developed a deep understanding of these concepts to understand novice's point-of-view and their struggles with the material.

Learning and teaching is hard!

[justin_oaks]

Thanks for explaining the problem. Do you think the proposed changes will help significantly and will be worth the trouble?

[ht_th]

Yes! The easier it is to get started with a language, the easier it is to learn and teach. Rather than focusing on (fighting) tools, you can focus on developing understanding of the core concepts of (Java) programming with a suitable learning trajectory. That's huge. And a boon to keep a language and community relevant. Once schools and teachers move on to other languages for teaching, you have to fight to win programmers over to use your language.

As for the added complexity to the compile or run-time system, that seems mostly an issue for language implementers, not users. It certainly won't be an issue for beginning programmers, so for them and their teachers, there's no tradeoff to pay for.

[smarks]

Thanks for raising this issue. What you describe as "local theories" (I'd say "mental model" but I think we're talking about the same thing) is quite important. We expect beginners to come up with erroneous models as they're exposed to stuff; revising and even discarding such models is intrinsic to learning. One of the benefits of this JEP is to minimize the opportunities for beginners to create erroneous mental models.

[ht_th]

I agree. And having to re-evaluate and improve your own mental models or local theories is part of learning anyway. That's not going away with these changes. But I think with these changes, the mental models will be easier to understand for teachers and closer to the model we aim for as teachers. As a result, it should be easier to nudge students into reforming their understanding towards the models we aim for. In particular, we can make easier programming examples because we can strip simple programs of a lot of more advanced boilerplate and syntax.