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> I heard people say java was much better than C and asked why; they explained how great eclipse was. To be fair, the language ecosystem may be why one languag

> I heard people say java was much better than C and asked why; they explained how great eclipse was. To be fair, the language ecosystem may be why one language ends up more popular than another that is superior in both memory safety and performance on paper. Of course, these are beginner students who don't have the full context to understand that. > "Today we'll write code, but we'll do it on pen and paper first and then we'll type it." After a few days, their skills clearly improved. Syntax errors were rare, off-by one errors mostly disappeared and they started thinking before writing. How anal were you with semicolons, parenthesis matching, and quotation balance? I can't imagine that would be remotely enjoyable to grade. That said, writing down the high-level structure on paper (annotated with the occasional implementation detail I don't want to forget when it's typing time) is immensely helpful.

marcodiego 5y ago
> How anal were you with semicolons, parenthesis matching, and quotation balance? In something like an exam, I would completely ignore mistakes like these as mere typos. But it prevented students from trying to write loops by trial-and-error and really understand what they were doing.
- uberman 5y ago
  As a teacher, I am rather surprised that you would frown on trial and error exploration. My first program was written on punch cards, It took a shoe box full of them to complete trivial assignments. I was thankful when I got to use my first line editor, my first page editor, my first general editor and my first IDE. I don't believe anything would be gained by going back to carving programs out of stone tablets.
  - anamexis 5y ago
    I've worked with several junior programmers who, when they encountered an error in a program they were working on, would immediately go back to their editor and try changing something to see if it fixed it. I encouraged them to stop, read the error and stack trace, and understand the issue before they changed anything to fix it. I think their skills improved for it. Trial and error is good, but you have to understand what you are trying, and if it works, why. Writing out a program up front can encourage this.
    - saurik 5y ago
      Yeah. I take this a step further, FWIW: I often look at something and think I know what is wrong, but I still force myself to prove it before allowing myself to try it, as the goal is to get better enough to not make the mistake in the future as well as be sure it works rather than merely looking correct for some "test".
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    Trial and error to learn something new is one thing. Trial and error of random modifications to fix something without ever understanding what was wrong is another entirely different thing.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    As someone that learned programming with editors/IDE, it's nice once in a while to go back to more basic methods, think more about the code. This is useful when at work the edit/deploy/test cycle is ~5 minutes.

marcodiego 5y ago

> How anal were you with semicolons, parenthesis matching, and quotation balance? In something like an exam, I would completely ignore mistakes like these as mere typos. But it prevented students from trying to write loops by trial-and-error and really understand what they were doing.

uberman 5y ago
As a teacher, I am rather surprised that you would frown on trial and error exploration. My first program was written on punch cards, It took a shoe box full of them to complete trivial assignments. I was thankful when I got to use my first line editor, my first page editor, my first general editor and my first IDE. I don't believe anything would be gained by going back to carving programs out of stone tablets.
- anamexis 5y ago
  I've worked with several junior programmers who, when they encountered an error in a program they were working on, would immediately go back to their editor and try changing something to see if it fixed it. I encouraged them to stop, read the error and stack trace, and understand the issue before they changed anything to fix it. I think their skills improved for it. Trial and error is good, but you have to understand what you are trying, and if it works, why. Writing out a program up front can encourage this.
  - saurik 5y ago
    Yeah. I take this a step further, FWIW: I often look at something and think I know what is wrong, but I still force myself to prove it before allowing myself to try it, as the goal is to get better enough to not make the mistake in the future as well as be sure it works rather than merely looking correct for some "test".
- marcodiego 5y ago
  Trial and error to learn something new is one thing. Trial and error of random modifications to fix something without ever understanding what was wrong is another entirely different thing.
- Zababa 5y ago
  As someone that learned programming with editors/IDE, it's nice once in a while to go back to more basic methods, think more about the code. This is useful when at work the edit/deploy/test cycle is ~5 minutes.