What you are saying, then, is that beginners should use a language that supports a REPL? Great! Now if we would just stop teaching Java to CS101 students...

REPL can be simulated on any language. I hope you're teaching your CS101 students more than just things that make sense in a REPL.

I don't think our philosophies differ that much. You didn't you would code and then immediately jump into debugger. You said "as soon as I feel like I understand what the code is supposed" so you already have thought about the code.

I've seen programmers trying to debug code by randomly and unsystematically putting breakpoints, hoping to getting a clue what the code does wrong, without even trying to think first. Shotgun debugging at its worst. If they don't have a clear model in their mind of what the code is supposed to do how can they deduce valid conclusions that can be proven or disproven?

Also: Memory protection leads to sloppy programmers. Bad habits should be punished.

Because of this sentence I'm not sure if your whole post is ironic or not. I'll treat it as non ironic.

Part of the learning process is not only in solving the exact thing you want to do. When you do the research needed to solve your problem you tend to get a lot of information that isn't related to the problem at hand but helps you understand the language and how to avoid related problems.

Yes, you tend to get a lot of information that is not related to the problem you're having but if you are a beginner but that doesn't mean that you also understand that information and keep it in mind for later reference. Because you just don't know the language and its problems yet!

If you're starting out in a new language (even if you already know programming in other languages) it is certainly not always obvious what code leads to unmaintainable code. Learning a language is always exploring unknown territory and exploring is much easier if you can do it in small steps and for that instant feedback is way better. You will always be using some sort of reference and tutorial for exploring it and if those tutorials recommend bad languages features or habits (and let's be honest, every language has these) then it's the fault of that learning material.

That may be, but tools made "for beginners" are bad tools. Not what you want when you're no longer a beginner. Then you want the beginner-stuff out of your way, so it doesn't waste your time.

I didn't say Eclipse is made "for beginners". IMO Eclipse works well enough OOTB even for advanced programmers, it stays out of your way most of the time.

But yes, if you want to become a really good programmer, you should expand your view beyond one single IDE. At least switching between Eclipse and Vim. :-)

Maybe I it's a bit of a rambling. But apparently the rest of my post is good enough to straighten out the weak intro. ;-)

Ah. So emacs is an IDE now?

No, it's always been one. Certainly for Emacs Lisp, with additional code (that is included nowadays) also for other programming languages. Surprisingly even Wikipedia agrees with that.

Syntax highlighting and parens matching doesn't really help the beginners. Instant feedback for programming errors is great, you immediately learn about the syntax on the go. Then the debugger is also a great tool (even though I think you should first think, then code, then think again and only as a last resort start the debugger).

These are not Eclipse-unique features, you can get such features with many setups but an easy to install IDE that satisfies your needs and is easily extendable with plugins that integrate seamlessly with your IDE (for example Findbugs).

It's almost like Emacs done right for Java. Well, as right as an IDE can be done.

I don't buy the argument that 1 class means 1 file is a problem (btw, this only applies to public classes anyway). If your project is large enough, you still get navigational problems even if you'd crammed 10000 lines into files (please, don't do this).

Yeah, so I just won't BUY ANY BOOKS. That will tell them "I don't read books", since that's all the signal they'll get out of me NOT BUYING ANY BOOKS.

You are suggesting that there are no DRM-free commercial ebooks available. That's just not true.

You get lots of commercial books from a lot of publishers. For example Tor, Baen, and Fictionwise. You might be out of luck if you want to read 50 shades of grey or twilight books. But hey, at least Harry Potter is DRM-free now.

Or just buy them, rip off the DRM with a simple script, and send them a letter saying "please stop using DRM, it's ineffective".

You think common sense and reasoning is the right strategy with people who just don't get it?

Either don't buy their books or buy the cheap paper book and tell them that they could have made more money from you if they'd cut out the middle man if you would have bought the ebook directly from them.

"Money" is the only argument that they'll understand.

Most of the custom framework the Kindle Touch and Kindle Paperwhite are using is based on a Java framework that is quite extendible.

For example a popular jailbreak patch called JBPatch adds lots of stuff to the standard Kindle reading software, like hyphenation

Theoretically it would be possible to add code that decodes epubs and thus lets you read the content.

Practically so far there have been standalone programs developped that let you read them.

I'm jailbreaking my Paperwhite so I can read ePubs!

And what program are you using for that?

I started the HackedUpReader project (based on the Coolreader code) for reading epubs on the Kindle Touch.

We know now the Kindle Paperwhite is quite similar to the Kindle Touch (also shown by the internal firmware version 5.1.2 for the Touch and 5.2.0 for the PW) and the latest release of HackedUpReader has possible support for the PW but I don't have heard any report so far.

The hacker spirit is not for "utility" but for "hacking". :-)

Having said that IMO there is utility in a jailbreak of Kindle devices even if you "only" want to use it for reading. Without a jailbreak you can't directly read specifc formats (e.g. epubs or some comic and manga formats).

You still need to get rid of either Adobe's or Amazon's DRM, the Jailbreak and software you'll later install will only display free eBooks in the other format.

Just say no to DRM. Buying DRM-"protected" ebooks sends the wrong message to publishers.

Or just convert ePubs in a minute or so using Calibre

But it's much easier to just copy your epubs onto the device than having everything going through Calibre.

Of course it depends on how you manage your ebooks but any conversion can go wrong and Amazon's reader software on the hardware Kindles is quite limited anyway (no kerning and no hyphenation)

I'm also quite sceptical about Calibre's code. But its UI is ugly and considering some security issues in the past by its main programmer I'm constantly surprised that it works fine most of the time.