Coping with Java as the core CS educational language: an evolutionary experience

Authors:
Libero Ficocelli;David Gregg
Affiliations:
Grande Prairie Regional College, Avenue Grande Prairie, AB;Grande Prairie Regional College, Avenue Grande Prairie, AB
Venue:
Proceedings of the 16th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education
Year:
2011

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Abstract

In this paper, we describe the impact of changing our core CS1, CS2 programming language to Java. We review some of the challenges encountered and their impact on students' performance. After a faltering start using the Objects First methodology, we were able to refocus our curriculum using a Fundamentals First approach which resulted in less student frustration and lower course attrition. Over the course of the past decade Java has slowly become a unifying thread through a significant number of programming courses in our diploma and university transfer computing science programs.