re: #28 thedopefishlives

This is why I’m a fan of low-level languages being taught early in Computer Science curriculums. Many of them have jumped ship to the managed languages - Java, C#/vb.net, etc. And in my mind, it is much easier to go from an unmanaged programming language to a managed one, than the other way ‘round. You learn early and often how pointer and array errors can cause serious and unexpected side effects. Yes, C/C++ is not as friendly to learn for a beginner than Java, but let’s face it - if you’re in a computer science program, you should not be caring about how friendly your first programming language is. You are going to be exposed to all manner of vile contraptions in your career, you might as well grow some balls and learn to embrace the suck.

First three classes at my current institution of higher education:

Java
C++
C

And they do extensive testing of things like bounds checks using the autograder in that C class.