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I have taught newcomers quite a bit and until you've done it you probably shouldn't trust your intuition about what non-programmers will and won't get hung up o
by 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
I have taught newcomers quite a bit and until you've done it you probably shouldn't trust your intuition about what non-programmers will and won't get hung up on.
Also like you mentioned, in even the medium-short term the thing that will get people learning the fastest is the thing that gives them a reason to code. Pretty much always right now that's going to be JS or sure maybe python.
- beagle3 6y agoI have taught GW-BASIC, and also Python, C, Fortran and a couple of other languages through the years. But I don't trust my experience because it spans three decades, in which my experience changed, my student's backgrounds changed, etc. Looking backwards, it is my experience that line-numbers and goto/gosub clicked more quickly and more deeply than function calls. But, as you say, and as I alluded to in my first post, motivation to write code tomorrow morning is likely a better thing to optimize for. I would refuse to teach JS, though; it has way too many warts one can't avoid, creating damage that would take a while to undo.