3 ms·
I think CS is so new that we don't quite have a grasp on what is truly hard and what is merely being explained badly. That's nothing against your teaching skill
by aristus 16y ago
I think CS is so new that we don't quite have a grasp on what is truly hard and what is merely being explained badly. That's nothing against your teaching skills; I mean that our mental model of functions and recursion may be unnecessarily complex, or mixed in with other things, or perhaps depends too much on visual or symbolic thinking.
- arctangent 16y agoAs the grandparent said, "It's hard for a master to think like a student." This is perhaps the biggest obstacle for people who are trying to teach others to program - and so I agree with you here. However, it does seem like there are some people who will just never be able to pick it up - even though they are demonstrably smart in other areas.
- aristus 16y agoI don't buy that. That's like saying some people are smart enough to read, but just can't figure out writing. There will always be those with exceptional aptitude. But if you must be exceptional to simply understand a subject as broad as computer science, that's a problem with how we conceive the science. The Romans thought multiplication was really hard, too. Exponents were literally unthinkable. We know better not because we're that much smarter, but because we have a simpler and more powerful way to think about it.