Re: PPIG discuss: Programmer education ain't what it used to be

[Ruven E Brooks]

In fact, you can easliy teach about pointers and memory management using 
Java. 
Simply have them use a large array to simulate physical memory  and give 
them
exercises chasing pointers through the array, etc.

Unsupported hypothesis:  They will actually learn about memory management 
and
pointers faster and easier this way becauses debugging will be easier; 
addresses will
all be integers starting at zero, rather than hex starting at an arbitrary 
offset.

I've even heard of giving exercises like this when teaching C++, before 
introducing the native pointer
constructs, because of the easy of visualizing what is taking place.

Ruven Brooks