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Why doesn't this say right at the very beginning what language you are trying to teach? The tone of the site is incredibly arrogant. What makes you qualified to

Why doesn't this say right at the very beginning what language you are trying to teach? The tone of the site is incredibly arrogant. What makes you qualified to teach? Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? It should be more explicit that this site is teaching Javascript (are you teaching other languages? it is not clear) and it is for complete beginners, and that the site creators make some very patronizing assumptions about the students. This is like clicking on a link to "poetryacademy.com" and finding a site that is teaching you how to sing the alphabet song.

tdfx 15y ago
I agree that the site should mention that the user will be programming in Javascript... but I'm not sure where you were going with the rest of that. "Arrogant" is definitely not the word I would use there.
- bwanaaaaaa 15y ago
  ARROGANT is precisely the word. The 'teachers' are showing off their real time javascript interpreter in an ersatz form of diluted rote learning. Monkey-see monkey-do is like putting blinders on someone.It's like telling you I am going to show you how to eat ice cream and giving you a scoop of vanilla out of your freezer.. I'd rather go to Kimball's and see people getting all sorts of flavors, all sorts of ways-and then when I see something interesting-ask them what does it taste like. Arrogance is when you hightlight the difference between you and me and then doing something to maintain that divide. Arrogance is the mechanism of maintain inequality. False advertising is a subtle, but commonly used form of arrogance. Like I said earlier, show me a way to interact and tinker with an already existing codebase that does something interesting. Make sure that codebase is extremely well commented and hyperlinked. And I will be swimming with freedom in a limitless sea of knowledge that people have cultivated over decades.
aik 15y ago
I think it would be more beneficial to the authors if you explained why the tone is arrogant? Also, why do you assume the authors aren't qualified to teach -- why do you immediately assume them to be incompetent by noting the Dunner-Kruger effect (that sounds a bit arrogant to me?)? On the same note, what exactly do you believe makes someone qualified to teach? One more question -- what exactly is wrong with targeting complete beginners? Please explain how that is patronizing -- it is a fact that some people in this world don't have programming experience, are OK with that, and would be happy to learn.
- dusklight 15y ago
  It shouldn't be called codecadamey, it should be called javascriptkindergarten. I think it is arrogant because it is claiming to be teaching how to code, when it is not doing anything of the sort. I think it is supremely arrogant to not even mention that it is teaching javascript specifically, making it sound like you could learn how to code in general from the site, when it covers only the most basic of basic topics, and then covers them wrongly. I think it is taking the wrong approach towards teaching someone how to code, in a manner that only someone who doesn't know how bad they are at coding would do. I think people need to understand that learning how to code takes a long time and a lot of hard work. I think the site does too much hand holding and is way too slow .. it is like saying that if you want to learn how to fly to the moon you just have to practice jumping higher and higher, it is like saying if you want to write the next great novel you should keep singing the alphabet song until you know all 26 letters .. it doesn't work and it's giving false hope to people who are not trying hard enough, making them think that they can put in the little little bit of effort that this site asks of them and they will be able to succeed in learning how to code. If I had to teach someone programming from scratch, I would definitely start off with some basic theory of computation stuff, get some basic concepts in on what a state machine is, what are the differences between a deterministic finite automata, nondeterministic finite automota, and a turing machine, then with a basic understanding of what a turing machine is, we can get some C in, learn the basic memory model, what is stack and heap, then gain some basic understanding of typing, difference between static types and dynamic types and why it is important to know about types, which makes so much more sense once you understand what is going on with the heap and dynamic memory allocation and so on, then we can go on to the concepts of abstraction, state change, and so on.
  - Wilya 15y ago
    Among all people who know how to program, the fraction of them who know what automatas are isn't so high. And if you restrict yourself to, among those, the fraction that studied Turing machines before any language ? Well, I don't think I know anyone in that case. Teaching isn't only about choosing the right subjects in the right order. It is also about making people involved in their own learning. Especially at basic levels.

tdfx 15y ago

I agree that the site should mention that the user will be programming in Javascript... but I'm not sure where you were going with the rest of that. "Arrogant" is definitely not the word I would use there.

bwanaaaaaa 15y ago
ARROGANT is precisely the word. The 'teachers' are showing off their real time javascript interpreter in an ersatz form of diluted rote learning. Monkey-see monkey-do is like putting blinders on someone.It's like telling you I am going to show you how to eat ice cream and giving you a scoop of vanilla out of your freezer.. I'd rather go to Kimball's and see people getting all sorts of flavors, all sorts of ways-and then when I see something interesting-ask them what does it taste like. Arrogance is when you hightlight the difference between you and me and then doing something to maintain that divide. Arrogance is the mechanism of maintain inequality. False advertising is a subtle, but commonly used form of arrogance. Like I said earlier, show me a way to interact and tinker with an already existing codebase that does something interesting. Make sure that codebase is extremely well commented and hyperlinked. And I will be swimming with freedom in a limitless sea of knowledge that people have cultivated over decades.

aik 15y ago

I think it would be more beneficial to the authors if you explained why the tone is arrogant? Also, why do you assume the authors aren't qualified to teach -- why do you immediately assume them to be incompetent by noting the Dunner-Kruger effect (that sounds a bit arrogant to me?)? On the same note, what exactly do you believe makes someone qualified to teach? One more question -- what exactly is wrong with targeting complete beginners? Please explain how that is patronizing -- it is a fact that some people in this world don't have programming experience, are OK with that, and would be happy to learn.

dusklight 15y ago
It shouldn't be called codecadamey, it should be called javascriptkindergarten. I think it is arrogant because it is claiming to be teaching how to code, when it is not doing anything of the sort. I think it is supremely arrogant to not even mention that it is teaching javascript specifically, making it sound like you could learn how to code in general from the site, when it covers only the most basic of basic topics, and then covers them wrongly. I think it is taking the wrong approach towards teaching someone how to code, in a manner that only someone who doesn't know how bad they are at coding would do. I think people need to understand that learning how to code takes a long time and a lot of hard work. I think the site does too much hand holding and is way too slow .. it is like saying that if you want to learn how to fly to the moon you just have to practice jumping higher and higher, it is like saying if you want to write the next great novel you should keep singing the alphabet song until you know all 26 letters .. it doesn't work and it's giving false hope to people who are not trying hard enough, making them think that they can put in the little little bit of effort that this site asks of them and they will be able to succeed in learning how to code. If I had to teach someone programming from scratch, I would definitely start off with some basic theory of computation stuff, get some basic concepts in on what a state machine is, what are the differences between a deterministic finite automata, nondeterministic finite automota, and a turing machine, then with a basic understanding of what a turing machine is, we can get some C in, learn the basic memory model, what is stack and heap, then gain some basic understanding of typing, difference between static types and dynamic types and why it is important to know about types, which makes so much more sense once you understand what is going on with the heap and dynamic memory allocation and so on, then we can go on to the concepts of abstraction, state change, and so on.
- Wilya 15y ago
  Among all people who know how to program, the fraction of them who know what automatas are isn't so high. And if you restrict yourself to, among those, the fraction that studied Turing machines before any language ? Well, I don't think I know anyone in that case. Teaching isn't only about choosing the right subjects in the right order. It is also about making people involved in their own learning. Especially at basic levels.