Cargo Cults in Java

Fletcher, Gordon

Abstract

This paper is a personal account of my experience of teaching Java programming to undergraduate and postgraduate students. These students enter their respective subjects with no previous Java programming knowledge. However, the undergraduate students have previous experience with Visual Basic programming. In contrast, the postgraduate students are enrolled in a “conversion ” course which, in most cases, means that they were unfamiliar with any form of programming language or, in some cases, some core information technology skills. Irrespective of these differences, I have witnessed how both groups independently develop, what can be described as, a trade based culture with similarities to ‘cargo cults ’ around the Java language. This anthropological term provides a useful terms of reference as the focus of programming activity for many students increasingly centres upon the imitation of code gathered from the lecturer or, in some cases, each other. This is particularly evident as project deadlines approach. In extreme examples of this cargo cult fever, students will discard potentially strong project developments that incorporate many features of good software design in favour of inelegant and cobbled together code on the single criteria of better functionality.

• Other Type: Other
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2004
• Deposit Date: Jul 30, 2023