Not to go too far aside but in the Physics ciriculum we teach the new students things that are utterly false, and we do so for a reason. We start with Newtonian physics, we tell them all sorts of things, we even give them a formula for the work done by kinetic friction that is so wrong as to be silly, but why? Because we take whats correct and simplify it so that the student can see the forest through the trees. If a new student was mired adding things like relativistic effects to their problems they would entirely miss the point of starting out in the program, not learning physics but learning how to do physics.
I think that C and Java give you enough rope to hang yourself with in this department. There is enough that has to be thought about and enough that has to be done a certain way that (in my experience) students don't spend enough time learning how to program well. It's my opinion that the above that you noted can be learned after the basics with no ill consequences. With a proper helping hand in learning the basics, nothing will have to be unlearned from developing bad habits either.
I feel a need, with plaintext being so poor at expressing the emotions of the writer compared to conversation, to explicitly note that there is no malice in the above and I am very thankful for your opinions. ~Adam
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