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You have a 10 year old coding colleague?

by executesorder66 6y ago

heavenlyblue 6y ago
The answer to “which sorting algorithm python uses” is the first result in Google. The third is official python docs.
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  The context was one where we were learning about how things work, rather than wanting to just know the answer per se. I always _try_ to show how one can answer problems from first principles before resorting to “go look it up on stack overflow”. It boosts ones sense of usefulness as a teacher if one can occasionally give more in depth answers as teachable moments. For one thing, demonstrating deeper understand is how you score high marks in exams.
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    I don't understand what you mean by "first principles". Open up Python's source code and check - this is first principles-first hand. As a matter of fact I am going to go as far as saying that reading source code is the _only_ way to actually be any good in software engineering because it's the only source of truth that never gets out of sync with the de-facto. Did you expect to find a blog post about it (you can find it on the first page of Google search I mentioned)? Or a YouTube video (didn't pay attention to that)? Books are reasonably good but usually get out of sync quite fast. And going back to first principles: the reason most of the literature may not mention what sorting algorithm Python uses is because a) it's irrelevant as a first principle knowledge b) it gets quickly out of sync.
    - dnadler 6y ago
      I think you've misread the comment. You seem to both have the same definition of first principles.
fnord123 6y ago
I think it's a tongue in cheek way to say that they are teaching their 10 year old child to code and they have had to shave some painful yaks.
gorgoiler 6y ago
Not quite that young. I am a teacher with 85 teenagers under my wing, at the last count. An important part of school is learning how to learn. It is a constant struggle with pupils to get them to actually think instead of googling for an answer. Sometimes it feels a bit like I am a grumpy oldie telling them things like _in my day we had to look things up in books instead of using Google!_ but most of the time it’s valuable in and of itself to go through things from first principles. (The sensehat bug was a case in point.) As far as source code is concerned, it turned out to be quite tractable to follow the Python source code at least far enough to find the timsort.txt document. If any of these kids go on to have technical careers, there will be plenty enough time for googling answers later on in life. Hopefully some of them will be writing the answers too.
- fnord123 6y ago
  tbh the only source of truth is the code. Documentation and comments are all lies! shakes fist
  - toyg 6y ago
    It's a bit like tech support, where you have to assume the user is always lying.
    - maxbond 6y ago
      I once got locked out of my Amazon account because I went through a weird flow where I ended up changing my email without clicking a confirmation link, and I made a typo, so it was changed to a nonexistant email. No one in tech support believed me. No one was willing to help me. They told me to make a new account. I've done my best not to buy from Amazon since. Please don't be hostile to users.
      - toyg 6y ago
        That's more fraud detection than tech-support, sadly. Even if they believed you, they might not have been authorized to help. You wouldn't want random people to hijack your account by crying "typo" to the support guys.

You have a 10 year old coding colleague?

heavenlyblue 6y ago

The answer to “which sorting algorithm python uses” is the first result in Google. The third is official python docs.

gorgoiler 6y ago
The context was one where we were learning about how things work, rather than wanting to just know the answer per se. I always _try_ to show how one can answer problems from first principles before resorting to “go look it up on stack overflow”. It boosts ones sense of usefulness as a teacher if one can occasionally give more in depth answers as teachable moments. For one thing, demonstrating deeper understand is how you score high marks in exams.
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  I don't understand what you mean by "first principles". Open up Python's source code and check - this is first principles-first hand. As a matter of fact I am going to go as far as saying that reading source code is the _only_ way to actually be any good in software engineering because it's the only source of truth that never gets out of sync with the de-facto. Did you expect to find a blog post about it (you can find it on the first page of Google search I mentioned)? Or a YouTube video (didn't pay attention to that)? Books are reasonably good but usually get out of sync quite fast. And going back to first principles: the reason most of the literature may not mention what sorting algorithm Python uses is because a) it's irrelevant as a first principle knowledge b) it gets quickly out of sync.
  - dnadler 6y ago
    I think you've misread the comment. You seem to both have the same definition of first principles.

fnord123 6y ago

I think it's a tongue in cheek way to say that they are teaching their 10 year old child to code and they have had to shave some painful yaks.

gorgoiler 6y ago

Not quite that young. I am a teacher with 85 teenagers under my wing, at the last count. An important part of school is learning how to learn. It is a constant struggle with pupils to get them to actually think instead of googling for an answer. Sometimes it feels a bit like I am a grumpy oldie telling them things like _in my day we had to look things up in books instead of using Google!_ but most of the time it’s valuable in and of itself to go through things from first principles. (The sensehat bug was a case in point.) As far as source code is concerned, it turned out to be quite tractable to follow the Python source code at least far enough to find the timsort.txt document. If any of these kids go on to have technical careers, there will be plenty enough time for googling answers later on in life. Hopefully some of them will be writing the answers too.

fnord123 6y ago
tbh the only source of truth is the code. Documentation and comments are all lies! shakes fist
- toyg 6y ago
  It's a bit like tech support, where you have to assume the user is always lying.
  - maxbond 6y ago
    I once got locked out of my Amazon account because I went through a weird flow where I ended up changing my email without clicking a confirmation link, and I made a typo, so it was changed to a nonexistant email. No one in tech support believed me. No one was willing to help me. They told me to make a new account. I've done my best not to buy from Amazon since. Please don't be hostile to users.
    - toyg 6y ago
      That's more fraud detection than tech-support, sadly. Even if they believed you, they might not have been authorized to help. You wouldn't want random people to hijack your account by crying "typo" to the support guys.