David Chappell published a very thought provoking article in his Opinari newsletter regarding the use of Java as the programming language of choice in universities today. David makes some very interesting and compelling points, but I am having a hard time buying into the main premise of the article. I would argue that the horizon of relevance for any particular language or technology taught in schools is so short as to be a non-issue. The real value in a computer science curriculum is in the fundamental concepts themselves, not the specific tools with which students explore those concepts.
Most of my college CS courses used Fortran77, C, or VAX Assembly. I don't remember a single thing about VAX Assembly. I barely remember enough about Fortran to know that I am happy I don't have to remember any more. I have been doing object oriented stuff for so long that I get queasy when I have to look at C code. If college were about the languages, I would be left with a big, fat, student loan payment and not much else. Fortunately, college is NOT about the languages at all. Its about learning to solve tough technical problems. Its about learning the fundamentals upon which all of todays technologies are built. I probably will never implement Quicksort or a binary search again, but the fact that I could is whats important.
I've interviewed my fair share of canditates, and its always the ones that have best grasp on the concepts that I want on my team. The language is almost irrelevant.
End Rant
3:59:13 PM 
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