Hi guys,
I just completed a my first semester in Java and I am trying to decide if I should take a more advanced Java course or take a class in C.
Long term I plan to continue to learn them both, however, I am wondering if a deeper understanding of Java will serve me better or if learning the basics of another language will be best.
Your experience and opinions will be truly appreciated.
Thank-you
What is your goal? A computer science degree? Programming experience?
Learning C is very important, IMHO. There's a limit to the understanding of the underlying machine you can gain with Java only. C, even if you won't really use it in your career, opens your eyes to important implementation details that will make you a better programmer overall.
I would choose another java course. Most of what you'll learn will be language independent. You will probably learn data structures, algorithms and get a deeper understanding of programming as a whole. What you will learn in your second java course will probably be easier to use in the c course than the other way around.
C is a very important language to learn. In very many ways it is the base language from which many other languages evolved. C++ came from C. Java came from C++. C# came from either Java or C++(depending on who you ask). Plus you learn about pointers and how to directly work with memory. All of this teaches you the fundamentals of how computers work.
I'd go for C myself.
An advanced JAVA class seems to me like a JAVA-Dependant class where you'll learn more about the java APIs and stuff, while learning C will be improve your base knowledge.
You would benefit from either. I suggest you do a little of both and spend more time on what interests you.
You already have a Java-basis. It would be great to get familiar with C. This knowledge will open for you new horizonts so you'll be able to decide what to do next - turn back and go deeper in Java, proceed with C or may be learn something new.
IMHO you shuld try everything new until you find your thing.
If you have a choice, I think you should strengthen your understanding of programming in the language you already know before branching out into other languages. If you start learning C right now, you'll be spending time learning a new syntax to do things you already know how to do. I think it's more important for newer programmers to become familiar with new concepts within the same language.
I blogged about this some time ago in Many Languages or One? There are some very good points brought up in the comments to that article.
You can always teach yourself C from K&R. More advanced features of a language you already know will be easier to learn from an instructor.
I think you'd be better off taking a course where you learn about data structures and algorithms. Often those courses have programming assignments where you're allowed to use a language of your choice. Then you could pick C and learn the practice of teaching yourself a new language. This is a better approach because you learn something that is universal across languages (data structures and algorithms) while at the same time picking up a new language.
Hey you can even continue with both. Java is BIG considering the library. C is small but so much can be done in it.
Why don't you learn both. When you want to do something which should be fast or system programming you will need C. And when you want to program for databases, web apps etc. you will be better with Java.
You want both depth and breadth in your programming experience. Java's a decent language for learning more about programming, so I'd opt for the more advanced course.
Longer term, learning something about C will help you get a better feel for what's happening below the Java level. This is important for understanding garbage collection, performance costs of various operations, and so on. (It'll also help if you want to learn C++, since it's a lot simpler.)
Learning C will also give you deep appreciation for how much more productive Java is, and then you'll naturally wonder if Java's productivity has been similarly surpassed by other languages. At some point in your studies you should definitely take a look at languages like Ruby, Clojure, Python, and/or Scala.
It all depends on your goals, your learning style and the content of the classes.
If you would like some hands-on experience that you can apply immediately, I would go for advanced Java, especially if your first Java class did not cover data structures, polymorphism and inheritance. Depending on the content of the advanced class, it might give you interesting software engineering fundamentals, as well as providing you with patterns and solutions that can be readily applied in the real world.
However, as other people mentioned before, Java is very well documented online, and it is very easy to pick up interesting knowledge from books or online sources. Therefore, if you already have a good grasp of more advanced development, you can probably pick up the Java specifics by yourself.
Learning C is a very important part of being a computer scientist and of understanding how things work. Depending on your goals, this might be very important. Personally, I encourage people to take C and asm classes just to learn the fundamental computer science concepts that come with studying those. However, I understand it might not be useful for everyone.
TLDR: Java will give you a good boost on the short term, C will give you the fundamentals to take your programming at the next level.
Perhaps post the course outlines for your first Java class, your advanced Java class and the C class. Mentioning your short term and long term goals might be helpful too.
Java is higher level than C, with fact that there are several stuffs have been taken care of automatically. Learning advanced java you will go further on how the design goes, good if you just want to have a taste of how program works and go for careers requiring higher level understand.
C is exposing more ugly truths, like pointers, and memory loc, which is exactly the way computer works, but easy to get beginner confused. You would want to learn some of data structure and basic of how computer works with C. I suspect the beginner level of C would offer similar things as in Java. But taking the course would make you less scared of a new language, though their are mostly in common logically.