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Theory is useless without implementation and implementation is nothing without an understanding of theory. Implementation and theory are in lockstep but by lear

Theory is useless without implementation and implementation is nothing without an understanding of theory. Implementation and theory are in lockstep but by learning theory you will not necessarily know how to implement, or even really understand, the topics you have memorized. On the other hand it is necessitated by the concept of implementation that you on one hand understand the tools you are using to solve this problem and on the other have reached a point where you see why the tool is used. You can sit a person in front of a whiteboard all you want. Brainwash them about arrays, maps, matricies, trees and graphs and they have a high likely hood of coming out knowing nothing but verbatum what you have told them. Conversly you cannot sit a person in front of a computer, guide them through the exercises that I described, and expect the same as the student who once sat in front of the whiteboard. Trees grow from seeds and the best way to plant these seeds are not with an expo marker but, in my opinion, by bringing the student to a crossroads where they need to discover a concept on their own. This is a common tactic in game design: allow the player to discover new rules after you've taught them the basic foundation. After they understand the basic foundation of how they will be interacting with the machine I think that, with the guidance of the correct assignements in the notebook codesegment phase of the program, the student will be able to create these different routines and ideas on their own. Some such examples I will provide below: - Make some way that will allow you to find a number between two possitions in memory - Make a wrapper for this routine that will operate from a starting possition and an offset of the size - Make a way to find the distance between two points on an X, Y plane - Find a way to apply the same transformation in every item between two points in memory - Find a way to implement a way of storing data about an X, Y plane. For instance where a dot is on a section of graph paper - Make a subroutine that will allow you to store potentially infinite items in a collection. There are many ways to approch this but the three main ones are to: use a section of memory that is preallocated and reallocated when it is filled, make some way to daisy chain items of the list together possibly by wrapping them in in more data that will serve to aid your program, do the same as the daisy chain but allow the chain to coninue in more then one direction. Hint: this will probably need an init_<structure>, add_<structure>, remove_<structure>, free_<structure> This would take a long time but under the correct stimulating guidance the student will be able to seek out why they need these tools. These tasks should be presented after they've completed a project that someone in our position knows that the optimal way of solving the problem was not choosen and a more abstract and simple solution exists. These situations will present themselves often. I've possitioned myself to make these suggestions to my peers at my university who are having a very difficult time passing the classes we are in together. The people who need to see why AND how. I'll look at their work and say "how about try using X method of solving the problem and show me what you come up with" and when they come up with a solution I say "now try and make it a library. Remove it from your current solution and allow yourself to use it for further work on other projects". This changes the way they think about programing.

keithly 10y ago
Do you have a blog? You have some interesting ideas that would be good to explore in a longer form.
- gravypod 10y ago
  I do it's https://blog.gravypod.com https://blog.gravypod.com but nothing interest is on it right now. I'd love to write more but I usually need a prompt on a topic that I've thought about. I try to keep my ideas to myself until I've formulated an argument for either side that is "sufficient" in my mind. I'd love to write about this in more detail and I'll definitely write about anything emailed to me if I'm able to formulate an idea either way. I'm heading home soon and write up something more detailed on this topic and why I feel this way on the topic of education.
thethirdone 10y ago
> Theory is useless without implementation and implementation is nothing without an understanding of theory. I feel that you greatly misunderstand why theory is important. It is not just something to be memorized to aid in implementation. It is useful and interesting in its own rite. CS Theory is Mathematics and like mathematics can be pursued simply with the goal of better understanding. An understanding of Turing Machines and computability is a good example for this. Generally knowing that there exist uncomputable functions is of little practical use as you are exceeding unlikely to encounter one in implementation. Similarly understanding turing machines well is not useful as they compute in a very different way compared to current computers. However, from a purely theoretical standpoint it is critical to know that there exist uncomputable functions. > You can sit a person in front of a whiteboard all you want. Brainwash them about arrays, maps, matricies, trees and graphs and they have a high likely hood of coming out knowing nothing but verbatum what you have told them The same could be said for teaching implementation. Thoughtless memorization is rarely useful in any field. You can instead have them discover the theory like they would discover an understanding of implementation you advise. Much of the theory of CS is not particularly hard to work out yourself if you are given the right hints. For example, an approach to teaching sorting algorithms could start by asking students to devise an algorithm to sort a list, and then have them compare algorithms and devise a way to evaluate which ones are the best and in which ways. Then after their progress slows introduce ideas like big O to help them further develop their ideas. The sorts taught in introductory algorithms classes are not very hard to understand (or design), and with the idea of big O in hand the introductory analysis in within reach of the student. However, I agree that teaching programming in general from learning the rules to interact with tyeh computer and building up abstraction is often the right path for many students. Personally, it was not a great start for me (I started with C; not exactly the lowest level, but lower than most CS courses nowadays). I would have preferred to learn more theory earlier in my learning, and that is not easy to do when you are focused only on the code and not on the ideas behind the code that are universal.

keithly 10y ago

Do you have a blog? You have some interesting ideas that would be good to explore in a longer form.

gravypod 10y ago
I do it's https://blog.gravypod.com https://blog.gravypod.com but nothing interest is on it right now. I'd love to write more but I usually need a prompt on a topic that I've thought about. I try to keep my ideas to myself until I've formulated an argument for either side that is "sufficient" in my mind. I'd love to write about this in more detail and I'll definitely write about anything emailed to me if I'm able to formulate an idea either way. I'm heading home soon and write up something more detailed on this topic and why I feel this way on the topic of education.

thethirdone 10y ago

> Theory is useless without implementation and implementation is nothing without an understanding of theory. I feel that you greatly misunderstand why theory is important. It is not just something to be memorized to aid in implementation. It is useful and interesting in its own rite. CS Theory is Mathematics and like mathematics can be pursued simply with the goal of better understanding. An understanding of Turing Machines and computability is a good example for this. Generally knowing that there exist uncomputable functions is of little practical use as you are exceeding unlikely to encounter one in implementation. Similarly understanding turing machines well is not useful as they compute in a very different way compared to current computers. However, from a purely theoretical standpoint it is critical to know that there exist uncomputable functions. > You can sit a person in front of a whiteboard all you want. Brainwash them about arrays, maps, matricies, trees and graphs and they have a high likely hood of coming out knowing nothing but verbatum what you have told them The same could be said for teaching implementation. Thoughtless memorization is rarely useful in any field. You can instead have them discover the theory like they would discover an understanding of implementation you advise. Much of the theory of CS is not particularly hard to work out yourself if you are given the right hints. For example, an approach to teaching sorting algorithms could start by asking students to devise an algorithm to sort a list, and then have them compare algorithms and devise a way to evaluate which ones are the best and in which ways. Then after their progress slows introduce ideas like big O to help them further develop their ideas. The sorts taught in introductory algorithms classes are not very hard to understand (or design), and with the idea of big O in hand the introductory analysis in within reach of the student. However, I agree that teaching programming in general from learning the rules to interact with tyeh computer and building up abstraction is often the right path for many students. Personally, it was not a great start for me (I started with C; not exactly the lowest level, but lower than most CS courses nowadays). I would have preferred to learn more theory earlier in my learning, and that is not easy to do when you are focused only on the code and not on the ideas behind the code that are universal.