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At least in my case, this wouldn't have worked at all. Most of the stuff I wrote as a sophomore was orders of magnitude more complicated than what I was doing a

by samdk 17y ago

At least in my case, this wouldn't have worked at all. Most of the stuff I wrote as a sophomore was orders of magnitude more complicated than what I was doing as a freshman. I wouldn't have understood what was happening at all.

fnid2 17y ago
That's okay. It'll be that way forever. I look at code I wrote 6 mos ago and gasp at the inefficiencies. If the freshman finds a better way, all the better -- the sophomore learns more too!
- samdk 17y ago
  That's not ok at all. You can't toss someone who doesn't understand what a function is into large-scale application development (which is what I was doing first semester sophomore year) and expect them to get anything out of it. There's merit (a lot of merit) to the idea of pair programming as a way to learn programming. I just don't think the logistics of freshman/sophomores working together are realistic.
  - fnid2 17y ago
    I'd argue that you should do just that. Throw them right into the middle of it. Dive right in! I think they'll get a lot out of it. As an intern after my freshman year, I had no idea what a database was, but I was thrown right into it and got a ton out of it. I have been observing how people learn and how things can be taught effectively. I noticed that the best teachers of a concept are those who have learned the concept most recently. If you've been programming for 20 years, it's hard to empathize with someone who has never coded before. But if you only started coding last year, it's easier to convey the thought processes required to learn the new information -- whatever field of knowledge it is in. A sophomore can explain the concept of the function to the freshman and in the process learn it better him or herself. It's a win-win.
  - AndrewDucker 17y ago
    Course you can! That's pretty much what we do with new starts where I work. Give them a mentor, get them stuck in, they pick up the basics very quickly and the complex stuff during the few months after that.

by samdk 17y ago

fnid2 17y ago

That's okay. It'll be that way forever. I look at code I wrote 6 mos ago and gasp at the inefficiencies. If the freshman finds a better way, all the better -- the sophomore learns more too!

samdk 17y ago
That's not ok at all. You can't toss someone who doesn't understand what a function is into large-scale application development (which is what I was doing first semester sophomore year) and expect them to get anything out of it. There's merit (a lot of merit) to the idea of pair programming as a way to learn programming. I just don't think the logistics of freshman/sophomores working together are realistic.
- fnid2 17y ago
  I'd argue that you should do just that. Throw them right into the middle of it. Dive right in! I think they'll get a lot out of it. As an intern after my freshman year, I had no idea what a database was, but I was thrown right into it and got a ton out of it. I have been observing how people learn and how things can be taught effectively. I noticed that the best teachers of a concept are those who have learned the concept most recently. If you've been programming for 20 years, it's hard to empathize with someone who has never coded before. But if you only started coding last year, it's easier to convey the thought processes required to learn the new information -- whatever field of knowledge it is in. A sophomore can explain the concept of the function to the freshman and in the process learn it better him or herself. It's a win-win.
- AndrewDucker 17y ago
  Course you can! That's pretty much what we do with new starts where I work. Give them a mentor, get them stuck in, they pick up the basics very quickly and the complex stuff during the few months after that.