18 ms·

How can I teach a bright person with no programming experience how to program?

120 points by ekm2 15y ago

andymoe 15y ago
Joel likes the sink or swim approach apparently. The first book, Code - Charles Petzold, is only ten bucks on the Kindle right now (SOLD) and I own the other two. I remember SICP being like 90 bucks for my hardcover copy and I'm pretty sure I bought it after reading the Joel on Software article "The Perils of Java Schools" while I was loving life as a bank IT guy so this is workable advice. It only took five years to become a "real" programmer after that. Also I sure don't remember K&R being $68[1]. (Yes I know SICP and K&R are both online for free) [1] http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628 http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernigh... [2] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchool...
- aiham 15y ago
  Could you link to a free (and legal) version of K&R? For anyone interested, I found SICP at http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/ http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
  - andymoe 15y ago
    I'm pretty sure there was a link to it from Dennis ritchies' home page: http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/dmr http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/dmr The site is down now though. Some forums say it's temporary but I don't know for sure.
  - skystorm 15y ago
    For completeness, SICP in .mobi format for Kindle: https://github.com/twcamper/sicp-kindle https://github.com/twcamper/sicp-kindle
  - daniel-cussen 15y ago
    Google: Kernighan Ritchie filetype:pdf
mquander 15y ago
I suppose most of us would give a similar answer as what Joel gave, but I found this nice pair of comments: Is this really the only way to be a good programmer? I'm someone that wants to study programming in my spare time and that's a bit of a daunting list for someone new to the industry... – toleero Jul 28 at 14:54 No, it is not the only way to be a good programmer. But if three books is a "daunting list" than you might be underestimating what it is that programmers do. – Joel Spolsky Jul 28 at 15:05 Seriously.
- Hyena 15y ago
  I think by "daunting" he means that the books do not look accessible to someone outside programming. I would say "Learn Python the Hard Way" if you're absolutely new to it. It moves quickly and will give a good sense of what it's like to actually push the bits around. Most people who really like programming seem to have a similar first experience (like using BASIC on their PC or calculator); replicating that seems like a good first step, no?
  - DanBC 15y ago
    For a bright student with no programming experience their first go should be something like Learn Python the Hard Way; with a clueful person around to give guidance. (Not to answer questions, but to push the student to ask the right questions in search engines). Once they've done that they're set up for K&R, etc. I get the impression that the development environment is invisible to programmers because it's just there. But imagine someone handed you K&R and asked to to write and compile a program. What compiler would you download? How would you install it? Where would you go for help? ---EDIT--- the child comment shows my next paragraph is pretty stupid. (In my defence I was remembering a time before Google would know what C or C++ meant; and before students had Internet access during lessons.) The other concept that beginners have trouble with in C is "how do I know the names of the functions that I'm supposed to use to do stuff? How do I know what displays text on the screen? How do I know what reads keyboard input?".
    - icebraining 15y ago
jay_kyburz 15y ago
I think in addition to studying these books, the student should be put right to work coding simple tasks. The best way to learn is by doing, not by theory. The student should get in and start hacking away at some non critical part of the code base. Perhaps the UI, or some reporting or tests. Something it's OK to break for a day or two. Pair them up with a more experienced developer and make sure they do code reviews. Discus the code and talk about what went right and what went wrong.
- inuhj 15y ago
  Agreed. I wish more books would adopt this strategy: "Ok, stop. To move forward with the application we will need code that does X, Y, and Z. Here is the spec that I want you to code for the next step. Work on it for a bit. If you're having trouble check out our forum for other people's attempts at a response and you can see 10 ways to solve the problem. On the next page you will see the code answer and the book will continue with an explanation of the code." Even as a beginner you can tackle small snippets of code using the basic control structures.
  - hackinthebochs 15y ago
    >Even as a beginner you can tackle small snippets of code using the basic control structures. Sadly, this is how programming books used to be written. Case in point: about a decade ago in high school we learned programming from a book called C by example. It had a handful of well thought out programming exercises after every section. A few years later I went looking for the book to give to a friend who was starting out. Lo and behold, in an updated version the exercises were all removed! It's mind-boggling that somehow the publisher thought removing the exercises was adding value to the book. Perhaps your average reader feels exercises makes a book seem too technical, so they skip it for the Learn X in Y hours style books? Nowadays you can't find good programming exercises outside of a dry textbook.
Volpe 15y ago
Weird to recommend not starting on the most relevant language (C#) but instead with C and Scheme... Sounds more like "old-hats" regurgitating their learning process. Why the line is always drawn with C as well, is interesting. Not assembly, not Java, or Python... but C. An analogy: Go and learn to use a mouse and keyboard, before you get an iPhone, otherwise things like the "On-Screen Keyboard" and the idea of "Touching (Clicking)" things is too difficult to grasp.
- bluedanieru 15y ago
  You will learn things picking up C that you need when using those other languages, but which might not be immediately obvious if you start with them. Pointers, memory management, et cetera...
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  If you want to get someone hireable as quickly as possible, tell them to learn C# or Java by all means. But if you want them to "achieve enlightenment", you've got to get them on scheme. And if you want them to see through all the smoke and mirrors, and gaze upon the simplicity that is the machine, you've got to teach them C. Assembly will work too, with the proper arch (and x86 is not it).
  - Androsynth 15y ago
    I completely agree with you. I think Joel was answering the 'how do I achieve enlightenment' question. Maybe he only considers someone a programmer if they are enlightened; seems kind of narrow-minded to me.
- devs1010 15y ago
  I feel the same way, you can still write decent code without knowing all the nitty gritty deep-down details, I'm a firm believer in learning as much as possible about lower-level, Eventually.. but its often a case of Too Much Information for someone starting out and, with Java, for example, it does garbage collection for you, so as long as you learn some basic patterns of use, the code shouldn't become overly maintainable. If they're using C# or Java, I'm pretty sure its not some mission critical app that has to be uber fast or the wheels will fall off of the company's entire operations
teyc 15y ago
I'm surprised no one made any mention of what this bright person knows in the first place. One of the best ways to teach is to map known concepts to new concepts. For instance, I might introduce methods to people who already know what functions are, but talk about messages to those who don't.
darasen 15y ago
I would think that the Stanford open class CS106a with Prof. Sahami would be an excellent start.
- rufibarbatus 15y ago
  Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL84A56BC7F4A1F852 http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL84A56BC7F4A1F852 Course resources: http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/cgi-bin/ http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/cgi-bin/
cek 15y ago
I am firmly convinced that if you don't enjoy programming you'll never actually become a programmer. It does not matter how smart you are. It does not matter how much you WANT to become a programmer. So the first thing I do when introducing someone to programming is point them at tools that will allow them to be productive quickly to see if they "get a kick" out of creating things with code. I think Joel's advice to start with C is GREAT. But only if the question is "I think I love to program. But I'm a noob. I want to become a great programmer. How do I start to become one?"
- Hyena 15y ago
  I believe this is largely incorrect. You can learn to love something, largely because you find yourself successful at it. On other threads you can hear from people who hated math until they learned logic and they were off to the races. I am sure that programming has the same thing; in fact, I know programming has the same dynamic. I know this because there is a steady stream of "how Python/Ruby/mobile apps/ditching my boss made me fall in love with programming again" which suggests strongly that one can change affect. Too strongly for it not to be true.
  - chrisguitarguy 15y ago
    >You can learn to love something True. Nothing is fun until you're good at it.
    - cek 15y ago
      I agree you can learn to love something, but to say that nothing is fun until you are good at it is simply Not True. When I got my Apple ][ in 1980 I was not good at programming. But I had a freaking BLAST writing AppleSoft BASIC code till the cows came home. Weeks previously I probably couldn't have even SPELLED programmer.
      - wccrawford 15y ago
        Agreed. I've done plenty of things that I was bad at, but enjoyed anyhow. Programming is first on the list, though you might say I had a natural aptitude for it. Despite the long road of learning (mostly) on my own, I enjoyed it all the way. (I say 'mostly' because there was a short programming class in 4th grade that introduced me to it.) Bowling is another. I'm really not good at it. With practice I might be, but I don't practice enough. I enjoy it anyhow.
RockyMcNuts 15y ago
K&R is awesome but... C would not be my first choice for a beginning language. Things like pointer arithmetic, memory allocation, etc. distract from the basics and high-level concepts. I would start with Python or Ruby these days. If Python is good enough for intros at places like MIT, it's good enough for me. C is a masterpiece of elegance and simplicity and gives you a mental model of how a real computer works, and it gives you a foundation for understanding Unix, but I just think it overloads a beginner with stuff that gets in the way. came to comments expecting a lot of reasons why Scheme or Lisp was a better choice LOL
- SomeCallMeTim 15y ago
  A month ago I went to advice the teacher of a high-school level video game design program about the curriculum of the program. I'm a C/C++ developer, but I too thought as you did that introducing a bunch of high school kids to programming using C or C++ would be too hard. The school in question is mostly low-income kids looking for a vocational experience, so we expected a bunch of kids who would be out of their depth if thrown in without a garbage collector. But then the teacher mentioned that none of the kids had a hard time learning C or C++, pointers included. So the group of game developers who had come to advice pretty much all agreed that learning C/C++ first was actually the best thing that could happen to those kids. Show them C first to teach them what the machine is REALLY doing (with only a minimal abstraction layer), give them OOP with C++, and THEN transition them to a scripting language and higher level environment so they can produce something interesting before the class is over.
  - einhverfr 15y ago
    I agree. C is a great language to learn at first. It's exacting and forces you to think like a programmer, but it isn't that hard to do very basic things. It's only when it comes to building larger, useful programs that it becomes difficult. The key though is you learn a lot of low-level stuff that's really useful later.
- derleth 15y ago
  > C is a masterpiece of elegance and simplicity and gives you a mental model of how a real computer works It used to. Now, with multicore systems and out-of-order execution and cache and nearly everything else that makes modern hardware fast enough to use, it is an over-simplified view of the abstraction the hardware wants you to see, but is not detailed enough to guide you when you need extra performance. As an example, C says nothing about cache lines; its memory model is completely flat. Cache is ideally 'transparent', but we all know that cache hits are a lot faster than misses. C gives you no guidance on how to arrange your data structures to ensure as many hits as possible.
devs1010 15y ago
Why not make them start in machine language, I mean since they need to learn how everything works before they can program in the language they choose right? I find it somewhat funny that C and C++ are the default "starting point" languages to learn programming when there are still lower-level languages than these. I see no problem with starting out at a higher level language and going from there, part of programming is having enthusiasm and being able to play around. By starting with easier languages, a person's interest may better be captured and can lead to more self-learning, the way I see it, the natural progression is to want to learn the harder, lower-level stuff as you move along in a development career anyways.
- DanBC 15y ago
  Code is pretty much explaining machine code.
zachgalant 15y ago
I'm pretty sure this is the only way: http://abstrusegoose.com/249 http://abstrusegoose.com/249
joshcrews 15y ago
I'm a bright person, and I learned to program in 6 months with only "programming" experience being Excel VBA scripts. Joel's method would have made me drop out and convinced me that programming was terribly boring-- much like a how a kid who wants to play the piano would feel after starting out on 6-months of only scales. I learned so quickly because I loved it, and I loved it because I could be instantly productive making apps with Ruby on Rails. There was still a lot to learn, but those things could be learned later "in the field" as they were relevant.
- ceol 15y ago
  I completely agree. My initial foray into programming was writing sites in PHP, and I learned a lot about logic, functions, classes, and structuring projects because of it— and my transition into other languages. Had I said I wanted to learn to program and someone tossed K&R at me and told me to "work through it by sheer force", I doubt I would have found the subject to be so interesting. Certainly K&R is a must-read, but Joel's advice... "If you can't get through this sequence, you're not going to be able to program, so you might as well give up now." ...is terrible. There is more than one way to introduce someone to programming.
iradik 15y ago
wow, i disagree! i can't even imagine starting with C. that's like saying the only way to learn to build with legos is to learn how to mold plastic first. sure it's possible, but desirable?
- einhverfr 15y ago
  What's the most important thing when learning to program? My answer: Exacting logic. C is a great language at teaching exacting logic. "Wax on, Wax off" kinds of things.....
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
iradik 15y ago
The only well-known language worse than C to start with would be C++. We used this in high school AP Computer Science before they switched to Java. Spent about 80% of our time learning pass by reference, templates, and about segfaults. The other 20% was on algorithms. Made programming seem horribly complex.
- ajross 15y ago
  Don't knows about you, but I wouldn't consider someone a "programmer" unless the had a solid grounding in pass by value vs. reference, generic programming, and hardware memory protection mechanisms. Yeah, and algorithms are important too.
  - iradik 15y ago
    Yes, but not C++
    - ajross 15y ago
      I actually don't disagree with your opinion: I wouldn't pick C++ as an environment to introduce programming either. But your reasoning was frankly awful. If those are the reasons you think C++ is "too complicated", then you really need to spend some more time learning C++.
      - iradik 15y ago
        You're right, those aren't good reasons for why C++ is awful. I think ERR i give up. You're right my whole rationale is pretty confusing. The class wasn't so bad in reality. We didn't really look deeply into the horrible "features" of C++.
  - araneae 15y ago
    Ah yes, the "no true scotsman." A programmer is someone who programs for a living. I program for a living. I have never programmed in C, have no idea what generic programming is, and I really couldn't care less about hardware memory protection.
derekreed 15y ago
Yeah, Joel is dead on for how to learn to program. Unfortunately, I think we need to question that question more. What folks are often asking when they ask "how do I program?" is something entirely different. How do I learn how to make a website? Use wordpress or yola or squarespace. How do I learn how to make that website look better? Read design blogs, some starter tutorials on html and css and start diving into the CSS. It's not that hard a standalone thing to learn. How do I learn how to make that website do something fancy like fade things out? Start diving into the javascript in the same way. How do I learn how to make that website do something functional like send an email, or save a session? Pick a modern framework (Ruby on Rails, Node on Express), read/watch the starter tutorials on it, and dive in. How do I learn how to make that website do something functional and NOT have it be a horrendous hack job? Time to start reading those programming books :D Just sayin' it's not always step 1. Depends on what you need to get done, and what you really want to learn how to do. Yeah?
scott_s 15y ago
Give them progressively harder programming problems to solve. Each new problem should be just baaaarely within their capability to solve, so they are forced to learn something new with each new problem. Each new problem should also 1) build on the foundations of the previous problem, and 2) introduce new fundamental concepts. I know of no other way. You learn programming by programming. This, by the way, is exactly what a good CS curriculum will do.
araneae 15y ago
The top comment is bullshit. I could not get through those three books but I get paid to program. My code is repetitive and shitty but I can produce a working web app as long as it doesn't have to support too many users, and it's fine. My husband never read any books about formal programming and taught himself from those random "learn Java" or "learn python" books. He's a mathematician and programs to write simulations/solve equations, and he gets paid for it too. If you can't get through those three books maybe you can't hope to be a computer scientist, fine. But you can certainly program, in the same way you don't have to be an English major to read or write.
- mquander 15y ago
  Most programmers write code that other people have to read, maintain, or extend at some point. If you write repetitive, shitty code, you may be qualified to write some useful programs for yourself, or write a web app that doesn't have to support too many users -- which are valuable skills -- but it is not fine for the majority of programming jobs. Incidentally, given that you can do what you described, I'm also pretty sure you could get through those three books if you tried; they are not rocket surgery.
  - araneae 15y ago
    My point is that programming is useful in a variety of contexts and you don't have to be that great at it to accomplish something. You're right, I probably wouldn't work out at most programming jobs. I do contract work; the web app I'm writing now I had about 3 weeks to knock out, will be used by 2,000 people, and will only be used for about a month. But I'm still a "programmer," because I program. We're not all writing mongodb or working at Google or whatnot.
    - mquander 15y ago
      Well, I agree with that, so I suppose I won't argue any further about it.
      - 15y ago
sunsu 15y ago
The first programs I wrote were complex BASH scripts that solved specific problems I needed solving. I had a friend that was there to help me a long the way. But the main reasons I continued learning were because I had the immediate benefit of having my problems solved and also because I had tangible evidence of my progress. The rest snowballed from there. I understand where Joel is coming from with his advice, but I don't think I agree with it. I had read quite a few programming books in the past (C & Java), muddled through the exercises, and thought I understood the concepts, but until I dived into solving real problems, I didn't "get it".
- edtechdev 15y ago
  Exactly - that's how I learned programming, too. It didn't matter so much about the syntax, but what problem you could solve. For me it was a Perl CGI script for letter writing and earlier a Hypercard registration system that got me into programming, despite my father and teachers repeatedly trying to teach me BASIC. Today it might be adding javascript to a page, or customizing/coding a game using tools like Scratch or Gamemaker. And there is decades worth of research backing this up (problem-based learning, situated cognition), but CS education has been slow to adapt.
Skywing 15y ago
tl;dr: If a book were going to teach somebody how to program then you wouldn't be asking this question. A book requires a self-motivated person to pick it up and read it. Assuming you're trying to teach somebody who didn't have the desire to learn on their own, then you're going to have to relate to them and explain it in a way that they'll understand. Getting them interested and excited about it usually seems to be the best kick-starter. You know what? I've actually unintentionally taught several people the basics of programming. I work at a small company with other bright people who are not programmers by study, but have learned how to communicate programming with me. I truly believe that teaching somebody to program is as easy as figuring out how to best explain something sequential to them. Usually, I begin my stealth teachings under the guise of me just trying to help them communicate their program requirements or ideas to me. I quickly jump into the lower level explanations of things and somehow I manage to get them excited or interested enough that they actually feel like talking "programming" with me will be cool. I try to explain to them that programming is like giving the computer an ordered list of things to do, and it'll do them exactly in that order. As simple as 1, 2, 3. I then explain loops. I don't get into functions and classes because that's not necessarily important to them understanding the flow of logic. Most people seem to easily grasp the concepts of if-then, and loops ... this is all really simple stuff for most people to understand at a basic level. I don't even necessarily mean code, but more so logically what an if-else means. I find that most people generally give you the "yea yea I got it" type of response while explaining this. Once I get them to this point, they're where I wanted them to be. I then try to include them in scenarios where I'm debugging something. I don't deliberately ask them to help me do my job, but I more so start talking out loud and usually they'll come over to help brainstorm. I show them my code, and explain the logic flow (if-else, loops, etc). You'll be surprised at how easy it is for people to actually help out here. Sometimes it's the non-programmers who can give the most obvious advice. At this point in time, it's up to them. If they're interested enough they'll progress from them, otherwise it may just no be their thing. I work with 8 people, and I have actually had one guy learn Python and he now writes Python tools for us - he knew zero programming. I also got our accountant into programming because he would always ask me the status of projects, and slowly over time I got him speaking "programmer-speak" with me, and now he basically understands all my programming yammer. I realize that these guys are not writing the next Redis or Twitter, but they were non-technical guys who are now on their way to being on their way to writing those things. :)
skurry 15y ago
Learning how to write code is actually fairly easy. Kids can do it. The hard part is to write code that doesn't make your co-workers hate your guts because they have to maintain it. I'd recommend getting a copy of McConnell's "Code Complete".
untitledwiz 15y ago
I could not agree more with Joel. To be a good/proper programmer you need to know C inside out. I would never, ever hire anyone who doesn't understand pointers.
Daishiman 15y ago
I did this. It's not for everyone, but for a highly motivated person it's not that hard either. A friend who's in Med School wanted better working conditions than working at crappy call centers. I gave him a high-level overview of what programming is about and threw him the Django tutorial and made myself available for questions. As I gave him practical requests for useful web code, I delved into the details of Python and web programming in general, while slowly introducing him to tools of the trade like the shell, debuggers, and data structures, trying to make every step of the way easier for him. Six months later he got a job at a biomedical NGO. He began by documenting and testing existing code, but now does quite a bit of coding by himself. I've found that teaching theory along with the tools that utilize it to be a very good strategy.
antoncohen 15y ago
Maybe Joel is right, maybe not. It might depend on the person. At 13 years old I tried learning C++, at 14 Java, at 16 C. None of them stuck. Part of it was that the concepts were too difficult to understand. In which case Joel's list might help, as it is more about concepts than teaching programming. I think a bigger part of the problem was that it was too difficult to write anything useful in those languages. After a semester of C (Intro to Programming) I don't think I could write a single useful program. If it was a semester of Python I'm damn sure I could write useful code after it. I wish a book like "Learn Python The Hard Way" existed back then. It would have been great to understand the basic concepts of programming, and see the code actually work. I remember a C class where the instructor was teaching about arrays. I don't think a single person in the class really understood what he was talking about. Compare that to Python lists and dictionaries, you can see them work, you understand what they do and how to use them immediately. I'll take Joel's advice and read those books. But I'm not sure they are best way for people to start.
yason 15y ago
On a generic level, the best way to make a smart non-programmer write programs is to describe how to do it but not tell them it's programming.
edtechdev 15y ago
To get some of the concepts of computer science and most basic features of programming, see: http://csunplugged.org/ http://csunplugged.org/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ For application development, I'd start with an environment that actually tried to make things simpler for the programmer and showed how you can use programming to tweak a design first before programming from scratch - an IDE (see Microsoft's beginner resources http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/default.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/default.aspx ) or game development environment (like gamemaker or XNA). See also actual curricula for high school or non-computer science students (CS0 courses), like http://csta.acm.org/ http://csta.acm.org/ http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-teach http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-teach I would not throw SICP at someone who didn't already know how to program.
xrd 15y ago
No one wants to learn to program. The question is fundamentally flawed. People want to build something, not learn to program. To teach someone to build something, teach them how to use the tools of the trade. No carpenter ever learned the physics behind wood in order to build their first table. The answers to this question all come from people with a perspective that this is what they would do if they wanted to take a bright person and put them into a developer role at their company. And, they all have the defeatist attitude that unless you read these three theory books, and spend four months of intense study, you cannot be a programmer. What hogwash. Most people cannot take four months off from work and intensely study programming. But, anyone can learn to tinker on something they care about with the right mentorship and using the right tools. Anyone can learn to use jQuery, Ruby on Rails or HTML if-and-only-if the point of doing so is not to learn jQuery, RoR or HTML but is to build something that inspires them. All you need is a path with baby steps and inspiration.
JoeAltmaier 15y ago
Inspire them, forget the details. Show them how to get a computer to leap into life with their creation, and they will take it from there. Showed my middle son how to animate a java graphic on a website. He never stopped. Now is a CS graduate student at CM designing/implementing the next internet routing protocols (and writing Kinect games).
thok 15y ago
What the fuck? Here is how I read this thread: Q: How do I quickly get a complete coder newbie up to speed to support .NET apps? A: Teach him Lisp and C What a silly, dogmatic, and unpractical answer. No one even bothered to ask about what kind of work this person is going to be doing, what sort of apps he'll be writing, what industry he's working in, etc. Obviously, the company where this guy works is giving him a shot at a super-entry-level programming job. If he has any hope of succeeding (which means being productive ASAP) in this job, learning C and Lisp is not going to help him.
antoinehersen 15y ago
I am helping a friend learn to program. He was doing "Learn Python The Hard Way" but was loosing steam. I created a project for him to do, a simple ASCII game: https://github.com/antoinehersen/ASCII-Dungeon-of-DOOM https://github.com/antoinehersen/ASCII-Dungeon-of-DOOM. Having a project with visual and interactive elements is far more motivating. Also it push you to learn the real skills needed for programing, not only knowing what a loop is or how to open a file, but figuring what to use when, and how to organize and connect it all. This experience will create a reference frame for everything he might subsequently read in a book. I strongly believe that accomplishing a small scale project that as some value is the best way to learn.
- deleted 15y ago
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apitaru 15y ago
I found a simple method that works really well: ask the student to invent their own language syntax on paper. We start with a simple language that can draw on screen, and proceed from there. I'm noticing that Students naturally discover many of the issues and tricks that they would otherwise have to "study" (such as flow of execution, nesting, variables) I occasionally teach at schools in NY, and this semester my students "invented" the smalltalk syntax. It was heartwarming to witness.
HilbertSpace 15y ago
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/10/program-or-be-programmed.html#comment-351671965 http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/10/program-or-be-programmed.htm... "To get 'skills' and expertise in the technical parts of computing, especially for Web 2.0, here is an outline in 8 steps:" Also it happens that that post, like the OP, is aimed at .NET. Also the post emphasizes just one book which has introductions to HTML, CSS, Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET, including relational database normal forms, and contains nothing on 'algorithms' such as in Knuth's TACP or subsequent, similar books. Also the post has nothing on C, C++, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, or Linux.

120 points by ekm2 15y ago

Joel likes the sink or swim approach apparently. The first book, Code - Charles Petzold, is only ten bucks on the Kindle right now (SOLD) and I own the other two. I remember SICP being like 90 bucks for my hardcover copy and I'm pretty sure I bought it after reading the Joel on Software article "The Perils of Java Schools" while I was loving life as a bank IT guy so this is workable advice. It only took five years to become a "real" programmer after that. Also I sure don't remember K&R being $68[1]. (Yes I know SICP and K&R are both online for free) [1] http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628 http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernigh... [2] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchool...

aiham 15y ago
Could you link to a free (and legal) version of K&R? For anyone interested, I found SICP at http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/ http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
- andymoe 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure there was a link to it from Dennis ritchies' home page: http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/dmr http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/dmr The site is down now though. Some forums say it's temporary but I don't know for sure.
- skystorm 15y ago
  For completeness, SICP in .mobi format for Kindle: https://github.com/twcamper/sicp-kindle https://github.com/twcamper/sicp-kindle
- daniel-cussen 15y ago
  Google: Kernighan Ritchie filetype:pdf

mquander 15y ago

I suppose most of us would give a similar answer as what Joel gave, but I found this nice pair of comments: Is this really the only way to be a good programmer? I'm someone that wants to study programming in my spare time and that's a bit of a daunting list for someone new to the industry... – toleero Jul 28 at 14:54 No, it is not the only way to be a good programmer. But if three books is a "daunting list" than you might be underestimating what it is that programmers do. – Joel Spolsky Jul 28 at 15:05 Seriously.

Hyena 15y ago
I think by "daunting" he means that the books do not look accessible to someone outside programming. I would say "Learn Python the Hard Way" if you're absolutely new to it. It moves quickly and will give a good sense of what it's like to actually push the bits around. Most people who really like programming seem to have a similar first experience (like using BASIC on their PC or calculator); replicating that seems like a good first step, no?
- DanBC 15y ago
  For a bright student with no programming experience their first go should be something like Learn Python the Hard Way; with a clueful person around to give guidance. (Not to answer questions, but to push the student to ask the right questions in search engines). Once they've done that they're set up for K&R, etc. I get the impression that the development environment is invisible to programmers because it's just there. But imagine someone handed you K&R and asked to to write and compile a program. What compiler would you download? How would you install it? Where would you go for help? ---EDIT--- the child comment shows my next paragraph is pretty stupid. (In my defence I was remembering a time before Google would know what C or C++ meant; and before students had Internet access during lessons.) The other concept that beginners have trouble with in C is "how do I know the names of the functions that I'm supposed to use to do stuff? How do I know what displays text on the screen? How do I know what reads keyboard input?".
  - icebraining 15y ago

jay_kyburz 15y ago

I think in addition to studying these books, the student should be put right to work coding simple tasks. The best way to learn is by doing, not by theory. The student should get in and start hacking away at some non critical part of the code base. Perhaps the UI, or some reporting or tests. Something it's OK to break for a day or two. Pair them up with a more experienced developer and make sure they do code reviews. Discus the code and talk about what went right and what went wrong.

inuhj 15y ago
Agreed. I wish more books would adopt this strategy: "Ok, stop. To move forward with the application we will need code that does X, Y, and Z. Here is the spec that I want you to code for the next step. Work on it for a bit. If you're having trouble check out our forum for other people's attempts at a response and you can see 10 ways to solve the problem. On the next page you will see the code answer and the book will continue with an explanation of the code." Even as a beginner you can tackle small snippets of code using the basic control structures.
- hackinthebochs 15y ago
  >Even as a beginner you can tackle small snippets of code using the basic control structures. Sadly, this is how programming books used to be written. Case in point: about a decade ago in high school we learned programming from a book called C by example. It had a handful of well thought out programming exercises after every section. A few years later I went looking for the book to give to a friend who was starting out. Lo and behold, in an updated version the exercises were all removed! It's mind-boggling that somehow the publisher thought removing the exercises was adding value to the book. Perhaps your average reader feels exercises makes a book seem too technical, so they skip it for the Learn X in Y hours style books? Nowadays you can't find good programming exercises outside of a dry textbook.

Volpe 15y ago

Weird to recommend not starting on the most relevant language (C#) but instead with C and Scheme... Sounds more like "old-hats" regurgitating their learning process. Why the line is always drawn with C as well, is interesting. Not assembly, not Java, or Python... but C. An analogy: Go and learn to use a mouse and keyboard, before you get an iPhone, otherwise things like the "On-Screen Keyboard" and the idea of "Touching (Clicking)" things is too difficult to grasp.

bluedanieru 15y ago
You will learn things picking up C that you need when using those other languages, but which might not be immediately obvious if you start with them. Pointers, memory management, et cetera...
burgerbrain 15y ago
If you want to get someone hireable as quickly as possible, tell them to learn C# or Java by all means. But if you want them to "achieve enlightenment", you've got to get them on scheme. And if you want them to see through all the smoke and mirrors, and gaze upon the simplicity that is the machine, you've got to teach them C. Assembly will work too, with the proper arch (and x86 is not it).
- Androsynth 15y ago
  I completely agree with you. I think Joel was answering the 'how do I achieve enlightenment' question. Maybe he only considers someone a programmer if they are enlightened; seems kind of narrow-minded to me.
devs1010 15y ago
I feel the same way, you can still write decent code without knowing all the nitty gritty deep-down details, I'm a firm believer in learning as much as possible about lower-level, Eventually.. but its often a case of Too Much Information for someone starting out and, with Java, for example, it does garbage collection for you, so as long as you learn some basic patterns of use, the code shouldn't become overly maintainable. If they're using C# or Java, I'm pretty sure its not some mission critical app that has to be uber fast or the wheels will fall off of the company's entire operations

teyc 15y ago

I'm surprised no one made any mention of what this bright person knows in the first place. One of the best ways to teach is to map known concepts to new concepts. For instance, I might introduce methods to people who already know what functions are, but talk about messages to those who don't.

darasen 15y ago

I would think that the Stanford open class CS106a with Prof. Sahami would be an excellent start.

rufibarbatus 15y ago
Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL84A56BC7F4A1F852 http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL84A56BC7F4A1F852 Course resources: http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/cgi-bin/ http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/cgi-bin/

cek 15y ago

I am firmly convinced that if you don't enjoy programming you'll never actually become a programmer. It does not matter how smart you are. It does not matter how much you WANT to become a programmer. So the first thing I do when introducing someone to programming is point them at tools that will allow them to be productive quickly to see if they "get a kick" out of creating things with code. I think Joel's advice to start with C is GREAT. But only if the question is "I think I love to program. But I'm a noob. I want to become a great programmer. How do I start to become one?"

Hyena 15y ago
I believe this is largely incorrect. You can learn to love something, largely because you find yourself successful at it. On other threads you can hear from people who hated math until they learned logic and they were off to the races. I am sure that programming has the same thing; in fact, I know programming has the same dynamic. I know this because there is a steady stream of "how Python/Ruby/mobile apps/ditching my boss made me fall in love with programming again" which suggests strongly that one can change affect. Too strongly for it not to be true.
- chrisguitarguy 15y ago
  >You can learn to love something True. Nothing is fun until you're good at it.
  - cek 15y ago
    I agree you can learn to love something, but to say that nothing is fun until you are good at it is simply Not True. When I got my Apple ][ in 1980 I was not good at programming. But I had a freaking BLAST writing AppleSoft BASIC code till the cows came home. Weeks previously I probably couldn't have even SPELLED programmer.
    - wccrawford 15y ago
      Agreed. I've done plenty of things that I was bad at, but enjoyed anyhow. Programming is first on the list, though you might say I had a natural aptitude for it. Despite the long road of learning (mostly) on my own, I enjoyed it all the way. (I say 'mostly' because there was a short programming class in 4th grade that introduced me to it.) Bowling is another. I'm really not good at it. With practice I might be, but I don't practice enough. I enjoy it anyhow.

RockyMcNuts 15y ago

K&R is awesome but... C would not be my first choice for a beginning language. Things like pointer arithmetic, memory allocation, etc. distract from the basics and high-level concepts. I would start with Python or Ruby these days. If Python is good enough for intros at places like MIT, it's good enough for me. C is a masterpiece of elegance and simplicity and gives you a mental model of how a real computer works, and it gives you a foundation for understanding Unix, but I just think it overloads a beginner with stuff that gets in the way. came to comments expecting a lot of reasons why Scheme or Lisp was a better choice LOL

SomeCallMeTim 15y ago
A month ago I went to advice the teacher of a high-school level video game design program about the curriculum of the program. I'm a C/C++ developer, but I too thought as you did that introducing a bunch of high school kids to programming using C or C++ would be too hard. The school in question is mostly low-income kids looking for a vocational experience, so we expected a bunch of kids who would be out of their depth if thrown in without a garbage collector. But then the teacher mentioned that none of the kids had a hard time learning C or C++, pointers included. So the group of game developers who had come to advice pretty much all agreed that learning C/C++ first was actually the best thing that could happen to those kids. Show them C first to teach them what the machine is REALLY doing (with only a minimal abstraction layer), give them OOP with C++, and THEN transition them to a scripting language and higher level environment so they can produce something interesting before the class is over.
- einhverfr 15y ago
  I agree. C is a great language to learn at first. It's exacting and forces you to think like a programmer, but it isn't that hard to do very basic things. It's only when it comes to building larger, useful programs that it becomes difficult. The key though is you learn a lot of low-level stuff that's really useful later.
derleth 15y ago
> C is a masterpiece of elegance and simplicity and gives you a mental model of how a real computer works It used to. Now, with multicore systems and out-of-order execution and cache and nearly everything else that makes modern hardware fast enough to use, it is an over-simplified view of the abstraction the hardware wants you to see, but is not detailed enough to guide you when you need extra performance. As an example, C says nothing about cache lines; its memory model is completely flat. Cache is ideally 'transparent', but we all know that cache hits are a lot faster than misses. C gives you no guidance on how to arrange your data structures to ensure as many hits as possible.

devs1010 15y ago

Why not make them start in machine language, I mean since they need to learn how everything works before they can program in the language they choose right? I find it somewhat funny that C and C++ are the default "starting point" languages to learn programming when there are still lower-level languages than these. I see no problem with starting out at a higher level language and going from there, part of programming is having enthusiasm and being able to play around. By starting with easier languages, a person's interest may better be captured and can lead to more self-learning, the way I see it, the natural progression is to want to learn the harder, lower-level stuff as you move along in a development career anyways.

DanBC 15y ago
Code is pretty much explaining machine code.

zachgalant 15y ago

I'm pretty sure this is the only way: http://abstrusegoose.com/249 http://abstrusegoose.com/249

joshcrews 15y ago

I'm a bright person, and I learned to program in 6 months with only "programming" experience being Excel VBA scripts. Joel's method would have made me drop out and convinced me that programming was terribly boring-- much like a how a kid who wants to play the piano would feel after starting out on 6-months of only scales. I learned so quickly because I loved it, and I loved it because I could be instantly productive making apps with Ruby on Rails. There was still a lot to learn, but those things could be learned later "in the field" as they were relevant.

ceol 15y ago
I completely agree. My initial foray into programming was writing sites in PHP, and I learned a lot about logic, functions, classes, and structuring projects because of it— and my transition into other languages. Had I said I wanted to learn to program and someone tossed K&R at me and told me to "work through it by sheer force", I doubt I would have found the subject to be so interesting. Certainly K&R is a must-read, but Joel's advice... "If you can't get through this sequence, you're not going to be able to program, so you might as well give up now." ...is terrible. There is more than one way to introduce someone to programming.

iradik 15y ago

wow, i disagree! i can't even imagine starting with C. that's like saying the only way to learn to build with legos is to learn how to mold plastic first. sure it's possible, but desirable?

einhverfr 15y ago
What's the most important thing when learning to program? My answer: Exacting logic. C is a great language at teaching exacting logic. "Wax on, Wax off" kinds of things.....

deleted 15y ago

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iradik 15y ago

The only well-known language worse than C to start with would be C++. We used this in high school AP Computer Science before they switched to Java. Spent about 80% of our time learning pass by reference, templates, and about segfaults. The other 20% was on algorithms. Made programming seem horribly complex.

ajross 15y ago
Don't knows about you, but I wouldn't consider someone a "programmer" unless the had a solid grounding in pass by value vs. reference, generic programming, and hardware memory protection mechanisms. Yeah, and algorithms are important too.
- iradik 15y ago
  Yes, but not C++
  - ajross 15y ago
    I actually don't disagree with your opinion: I wouldn't pick C++ as an environment to introduce programming either. But your reasoning was frankly awful. If those are the reasons you think C++ is "too complicated", then you really need to spend some more time learning C++.
    - iradik 15y ago
      You're right, those aren't good reasons for why C++ is awful. I think ERR i give up. You're right my whole rationale is pretty confusing. The class wasn't so bad in reality. We didn't really look deeply into the horrible "features" of C++.
- araneae 15y ago
  Ah yes, the "no true scotsman." A programmer is someone who programs for a living. I program for a living. I have never programmed in C, have no idea what generic programming is, and I really couldn't care less about hardware memory protection.

derekreed 15y ago

Yeah, Joel is dead on for how to learn to program. Unfortunately, I think we need to question that question more. What folks are often asking when they ask "how do I program?" is something entirely different. How do I learn how to make a website? Use wordpress or yola or squarespace. How do I learn how to make that website look better? Read design blogs, some starter tutorials on html and css and start diving into the CSS. It's not that hard a standalone thing to learn. How do I learn how to make that website do something fancy like fade things out? Start diving into the javascript in the same way. How do I learn how to make that website do something functional like send an email, or save a session? Pick a modern framework (Ruby on Rails, Node on Express), read/watch the starter tutorials on it, and dive in. How do I learn how to make that website do something functional and NOT have it be a horrendous hack job? Time to start reading those programming books :D Just sayin' it's not always step 1. Depends on what you need to get done, and what you really want to learn how to do. Yeah?

scott_s 15y ago

Give them progressively harder programming problems to solve. Each new problem should be just baaaarely within their capability to solve, so they are forced to learn something new with each new problem. Each new problem should also 1) build on the foundations of the previous problem, and 2) introduce new fundamental concepts. I know of no other way. You learn programming by programming. This, by the way, is exactly what a good CS curriculum will do.

araneae 15y ago

The top comment is bullshit. I could not get through those three books but I get paid to program. My code is repetitive and shitty but I can produce a working web app as long as it doesn't have to support too many users, and it's fine. My husband never read any books about formal programming and taught himself from those random "learn Java" or "learn python" books. He's a mathematician and programs to write simulations/solve equations, and he gets paid for it too. If you can't get through those three books maybe you can't hope to be a computer scientist, fine. But you can certainly program, in the same way you don't have to be an English major to read or write.

mquander 15y ago
Most programmers write code that other people have to read, maintain, or extend at some point. If you write repetitive, shitty code, you may be qualified to write some useful programs for yourself, or write a web app that doesn't have to support too many users -- which are valuable skills -- but it is not fine for the majority of programming jobs. Incidentally, given that you can do what you described, I'm also pretty sure you could get through those three books if you tried; they are not rocket surgery.
- araneae 15y ago
  My point is that programming is useful in a variety of contexts and you don't have to be that great at it to accomplish something. You're right, I probably wouldn't work out at most programming jobs. I do contract work; the web app I'm writing now I had about 3 weeks to knock out, will be used by 2,000 people, and will only be used for about a month. But I'm still a "programmer," because I program. We're not all writing mongodb or working at Google or whatnot.
  - mquander 15y ago
    Well, I agree with that, so I suppose I won't argue any further about it.
    - 15y ago

sunsu 15y ago

The first programs I wrote were complex BASH scripts that solved specific problems I needed solving. I had a friend that was there to help me a long the way. But the main reasons I continued learning were because I had the immediate benefit of having my problems solved and also because I had tangible evidence of my progress. The rest snowballed from there. I understand where Joel is coming from with his advice, but I don't think I agree with it. I had read quite a few programming books in the past (C & Java), muddled through the exercises, and thought I understood the concepts, but until I dived into solving real problems, I didn't "get it".

edtechdev 15y ago
Exactly - that's how I learned programming, too. It didn't matter so much about the syntax, but what problem you could solve. For me it was a Perl CGI script for letter writing and earlier a Hypercard registration system that got me into programming, despite my father and teachers repeatedly trying to teach me BASIC. Today it might be adding javascript to a page, or customizing/coding a game using tools like Scratch or Gamemaker. And there is decades worth of research backing this up (problem-based learning, situated cognition), but CS education has been slow to adapt.

Skywing 15y ago

tl;dr: If a book were going to teach somebody how to program then you wouldn't be asking this question. A book requires a self-motivated person to pick it up and read it. Assuming you're trying to teach somebody who didn't have the desire to learn on their own, then you're going to have to relate to them and explain it in a way that they'll understand. Getting them interested and excited about it usually seems to be the best kick-starter. You know what? I've actually unintentionally taught several people the basics of programming. I work at a small company with other bright people who are not programmers by study, but have learned how to communicate programming with me. I truly believe that teaching somebody to program is as easy as figuring out how to best explain something sequential to them. Usually, I begin my stealth teachings under the guise of me just trying to help them communicate their program requirements or ideas to me. I quickly jump into the lower level explanations of things and somehow I manage to get them excited or interested enough that they actually feel like talking "programming" with me will be cool. I try to explain to them that programming is like giving the computer an ordered list of things to do, and it'll do them exactly in that order. As simple as 1, 2, 3. I then explain loops. I don't get into functions and classes because that's not necessarily important to them understanding the flow of logic. Most people seem to easily grasp the concepts of if-then, and loops ... this is all really simple stuff for most people to understand at a basic level. I don't even necessarily mean code, but more so logically what an if-else means. I find that most people generally give you the "yea yea I got it" type of response while explaining this. Once I get them to this point, they're where I wanted them to be. I then try to include them in scenarios where I'm debugging something. I don't deliberately ask them to help me do my job, but I more so start talking out loud and usually they'll come over to help brainstorm. I show them my code, and explain the logic flow (if-else, loops, etc). You'll be surprised at how easy it is for people to actually help out here. Sometimes it's the non-programmers who can give the most obvious advice. At this point in time, it's up to them. If they're interested enough they'll progress from them, otherwise it may just no be their thing. I work with 8 people, and I have actually had one guy learn Python and he now writes Python tools for us - he knew zero programming. I also got our accountant into programming because he would always ask me the status of projects, and slowly over time I got him speaking "programmer-speak" with me, and now he basically understands all my programming yammer. I realize that these guys are not writing the next Redis or Twitter, but they were non-technical guys who are now on their way to being on their way to writing those things. :)

skurry 15y ago

Learning how to write code is actually fairly easy. Kids can do it. The hard part is to write code that doesn't make your co-workers hate your guts because they have to maintain it. I'd recommend getting a copy of McConnell's "Code Complete".

untitledwiz 15y ago

I could not agree more with Joel. To be a good/proper programmer you need to know C inside out. I would never, ever hire anyone who doesn't understand pointers.

Daishiman 15y ago

I did this. It's not for everyone, but for a highly motivated person it's not that hard either. A friend who's in Med School wanted better working conditions than working at crappy call centers. I gave him a high-level overview of what programming is about and threw him the Django tutorial and made myself available for questions. As I gave him practical requests for useful web code, I delved into the details of Python and web programming in general, while slowly introducing him to tools of the trade like the shell, debuggers, and data structures, trying to make every step of the way easier for him. Six months later he got a job at a biomedical NGO. He began by documenting and testing existing code, but now does quite a bit of coding by himself. I've found that teaching theory along with the tools that utilize it to be a very good strategy.

antoncohen 15y ago

Maybe Joel is right, maybe not. It might depend on the person. At 13 years old I tried learning C++, at 14 Java, at 16 C. None of them stuck. Part of it was that the concepts were too difficult to understand. In which case Joel's list might help, as it is more about concepts than teaching programming. I think a bigger part of the problem was that it was too difficult to write anything useful in those languages. After a semester of C (Intro to Programming) I don't think I could write a single useful program. If it was a semester of Python I'm damn sure I could write useful code after it. I wish a book like "Learn Python The Hard Way" existed back then. It would have been great to understand the basic concepts of programming, and see the code actually work. I remember a C class where the instructor was teaching about arrays. I don't think a single person in the class really understood what he was talking about. Compare that to Python lists and dictionaries, you can see them work, you understand what they do and how to use them immediately. I'll take Joel's advice and read those books. But I'm not sure they are best way for people to start.

yason 15y ago

On a generic level, the best way to make a smart non-programmer write programs is to describe how to do it but not tell them it's programming.

edtechdev 15y ago

To get some of the concepts of computer science and most basic features of programming, see: http://csunplugged.org/ http://csunplugged.org/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ For application development, I'd start with an environment that actually tried to make things simpler for the programmer and showed how you can use programming to tweak a design first before programming from scratch - an IDE (see Microsoft's beginner resources http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/default.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/default.aspx ) or game development environment (like gamemaker or XNA). See also actual curricula for high school or non-computer science students (CS0 courses), like http://csta.acm.org/ http://csta.acm.org/ http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-teach http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-teach I would not throw SICP at someone who didn't already know how to program.

xrd 15y ago

No one wants to learn to program. The question is fundamentally flawed. People want to build something, not learn to program. To teach someone to build something, teach them how to use the tools of the trade. No carpenter ever learned the physics behind wood in order to build their first table. The answers to this question all come from people with a perspective that this is what they would do if they wanted to take a bright person and put them into a developer role at their company. And, they all have the defeatist attitude that unless you read these three theory books, and spend four months of intense study, you cannot be a programmer. What hogwash. Most people cannot take four months off from work and intensely study programming. But, anyone can learn to tinker on something they care about with the right mentorship and using the right tools. Anyone can learn to use jQuery, Ruby on Rails or HTML if-and-only-if the point of doing so is not to learn jQuery, RoR or HTML but is to build something that inspires them. All you need is a path with baby steps and inspiration.

JoeAltmaier 15y ago

Inspire them, forget the details. Show them how to get a computer to leap into life with their creation, and they will take it from there. Showed my middle son how to animate a java graphic on a website. He never stopped. Now is a CS graduate student at CM designing/implementing the next internet routing protocols (and writing Kinect games).

thok 15y ago

What the fuck? Here is how I read this thread: Q: How do I quickly get a complete coder newbie up to speed to support .NET apps? A: Teach him Lisp and C What a silly, dogmatic, and unpractical answer. No one even bothered to ask about what kind of work this person is going to be doing, what sort of apps he'll be writing, what industry he's working in, etc. Obviously, the company where this guy works is giving him a shot at a super-entry-level programming job. If he has any hope of succeeding (which means being productive ASAP) in this job, learning C and Lisp is not going to help him.

antoinehersen 15y ago

I am helping a friend learn to program. He was doing "Learn Python The Hard Way" but was loosing steam. I created a project for him to do, a simple ASCII game: https://github.com/antoinehersen/ASCII-Dungeon-of-DOOM https://github.com/antoinehersen/ASCII-Dungeon-of-DOOM. Having a project with visual and interactive elements is far more motivating. Also it push you to learn the real skills needed for programing, not only knowing what a loop is or how to open a file, but figuring what to use when, and how to organize and connect it all. This experience will create a reference frame for everything he might subsequently read in a book. I strongly believe that accomplishing a small scale project that as some value is the best way to learn.

deleted 15y ago
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apitaru 15y ago

I found a simple method that works really well: ask the student to invent their own language syntax on paper. We start with a simple language that can draw on screen, and proceed from there. I'm noticing that Students naturally discover many of the issues and tricks that they would otherwise have to "study" (such as flow of execution, nesting, variables) I occasionally teach at schools in NY, and this semester my students "invented" the smalltalk syntax. It was heartwarming to witness.

HilbertSpace 15y ago

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/10/program-or-be-programmed.html#comment-351671965 http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/10/program-or-be-programmed.htm... "To get 'skills' and expertise in the technical parts of computing, especially for Web 2.0, here is an outline in 8 steps:" Also it happens that that post, like the OP, is aimed at .NET. Also the post emphasizes just one book which has introductions to HTML, CSS, Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET, including relational database normal forms, and contains nothing on 'algorithms' such as in Knuth's TACP or subsequent, similar books. Also the post has nothing on C, C++, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, or Linux.