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> There are too many sharp edges. I wasn't thinking they should learn programming as such. More that they should learn some various unix tools (grep/sed/awk/et

by flukus 9y ago

> There are too many sharp edges. I wasn't thinking they should learn programming as such. More that they should learn some various unix tools (grep/sed/awk/etc), learn how to combine them with pipes and learn how they can save the workflows in a shell script. Maybe some functions and variables but not if statements or loops. Maybe even do that in awk instead of bash. I really love the blog by the way, any tips for putting one together like that? I'm currently replacing my node based abomination with a similarly minimalist one built with make, a couple of awk scripts and pandoc. I was thinking of going even more minimalist and putting a link to firefox reader mode on the page.

chubot 9y ago
Yeah I think learning pattern matching like regexps before learning control flow and state with variables could be a good thing. I can imagine a curriculum where you go from HTML (data) -> regex (patterns) -> full source code. One thing I noticed is that a lot of people who want to learn to program aren't that proficient at using a text editor and generally using a computer, and doing HTML first will solve that. But I also think that regexes have the obvious problem of syntax too. I have taught regexes along with Python to non-programmers, and it works OK, but the material didn't demand too much. I think it was basically \d+ and one or two other constructs. FWIW one of my goals is to combine bash, awk, and make, although this is sort of far off: http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2016/11/14.html http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2016/11/14.html Awk is an OK first language but honestly it's worse than JavaScript, because you can't even return an array from a function. Also, functions can't be used as parameters or return values to other functions. Although I suppose it has the advantage of being very stable and immediate, and not requiring NPM and what not. However JavaScript has the advantage of integrating with the web. --- As far as the blog, it's a bunch of custom shell, Python, and CSS that I cobbled together over the years, and then wrapped in a Makefile. I use markdown.pl but I'm thinking of switching to CommonMark. I've made several static websites before so I copied the best bits, with not too much cruft. It also evolved over the course of the blog. It looks really simple but there are some details that I spent awhile on. (And honestly I wish Oil existed so I could write it all in one language, not shell + make + Python!)

by flukus 9y ago

chubot 9y ago

Yeah I think learning pattern matching like regexps before learning control flow and state with variables could be a good thing. I can imagine a curriculum where you go from HTML (data) -> regex (patterns) -> full source code. One thing I noticed is that a lot of people who want to learn to program aren't that proficient at using a text editor and generally using a computer, and doing HTML first will solve that. But I also think that regexes have the obvious problem of syntax too. I have taught regexes along with Python to non-programmers, and it works OK, but the material didn't demand too much. I think it was basically \d+ and one or two other constructs. FWIW one of my goals is to combine bash, awk, and make, although this is sort of far off: http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2016/11/14.html http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2016/11/14.html Awk is an OK first language but honestly it's worse than JavaScript, because you can't even return an array from a function. Also, functions can't be used as parameters or return values to other functions. Although I suppose it has the advantage of being very stable and immediate, and not requiring NPM and what not. However JavaScript has the advantage of integrating with the web. --- As far as the blog, it's a bunch of custom shell, Python, and CSS that I cobbled together over the years, and then wrapped in a Makefile. I use markdown.pl but I'm thinking of switching to CommonMark. I've made several static websites before so I copied the best bits, with not too much cruft. It also evolved over the course of the blog. It looks really simple but there are some details that I spent awhile on. (And honestly I wish Oil existed so I could write it all in one language, not shell + make + Python!)