I didn't say Java was an easy language.. I said it was easier to teach to non-programmers.. when I took my java course, I found it easy, but we never went any deeper than UI widgets and some list stuff.. Java is easier than C because you don't have to do %90 of the hard code which you are required to write when taking C courses. Teaching OO concepts is one thing, but when your education of b-trees is 'create btree foo' 'foo.addobject(bar)', what's the point unless you are going to be a professional Java programmer the rest of your life?

Having a intro to programming course for a comp-sci degree use Java is one thing, having all computer programming courses use Java is annother.. I'm not against Java, I'm just against using Java for things it has no business doing (like graphical applications.. )

My assembler prof had the same sort of experience.. we had to write a program to solve some magic number problem..
he said the limit was like 27 instructions.. someone did it in like 11.. (they kinda cheated, figured out the pattern and created a hash of the different solutions)