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What do you guys think of Zed Shaw's teaching style? As I'm not a beginner programmer, I can't really evaluate correctly — to me it seems like a odd approach to

by delwin 15y ago

What do you guys think of Zed Shaw's teaching style? As I'm not a beginner programmer, I can't really evaluate correctly — to me it seems like a odd approach to programming pedagogy, but perhaps it works. Any non-programmers want to shed light on why his style works?

KevinEldon 15y ago
My brother is working through Learn Ruby The Hard Way, which is not written by Zed, but is based on his Python book. He has no programming experience and seems to be enjoying the work and learning Ruby pretty quickly.
nikcub 15y ago
as a Python dev I scanned the python book and I thought it dwelled too much on string formatting, focused on teaching syntax and not programming, and the language was a bit terse. but then a friend of mine told me that he and a few other people he knew learnt python from that book, so either later revisions got better or my opinion is shit.
- zedshaw 15y ago
  I don't think your opinion is shit, I just think your perspective has changed because you actually can code. The hardest thing for a beginner is just the syntax. If you've never written code before then the symbols in programming are alien as hell. By focusing on seemingly repetitive syntax drills I get them skilled progressively until syntax isn't a problem. Another thing you might be missing is under each exercise is a real piece of programming they're learning. For example, with string formatting I'm actually teaching the concept of named variables. Later on I use the fact they've actually been using named variables to then teach the concept explicitly and then they get it quicker.
  - YuriNiyazov 15y ago
    I agree that syntax is the hardest thing. Based on my experience tutoring, I would add the following (which was surprising to discover at first): the second hardest thing is the order of evaluation. I've seen students write down a = do_something1(do_something2()) and be unable to explain that do_something2() actually happens before do_something1(), and to see that the code is loosely equivalent to b = do_something2() a = do_something1(b)
    - Locke1689 15y ago
      The worst is when you're teaching C and you have to explain that void * a = do_something1(do_something2(), do_something3()); is not equivalent to int b = do_something2(); int c = do_something3(); void * a = do_something1(b, c);
      - YuriNiyazov 15y ago
        Because the order of evaluation of arguments is not defined?
  - drmohundro 15y ago
    I'm a CS grad, but I had zero knowledge of programming when I entered college - I knew some basics about HTML and I could fix some basic computer issues but that is it. I remember trying to open an executable in Notepad and thinking to myself, "uh oh, this is going to be really hard." I was still struggling with syntax issues into my second year of school. It's not a good feeling to be debugging null pointer issues and data structures when you're not confident with the syntax.
AgentConundrum 15y ago
I'm about 75% through his Python book, and I have to say I like it. He assumes you're an absolute beginner, and I'm not, so I can't really give it a fair appraisal from the perspective of its target audience. That said, the book definitely makes learning fun. For the first half of the book, you have a really quick learn-reward cycle. The exercises are short and to the point, and he makes you type in the lesson and run it. This means that you type a few lines, then immediately get to see what it did, on your computer. It very much reminds me of when I was in grade 10 and we were doing simple stuff in QBasic. It would definitely grab and keep the interest of an absolute beginner dipping his or her toes into the programming pool for the first time. From the perspective of an experienced programmer - a term I apply to myself with some trepidation - things move a bit slow, but the experienced programmer is definitely not Zed's target with the book. Even being on the slow side, the exercises are quick enough that you can knock out a bunch of lessons quickly if you're so inclined, and I've definitely skipped over a bunch of the "Extra Credit" stuff because of that. I actually did spend the "recommended" week doing Exercise 37, which is sort of a "learn at your own pace" exercise. You're given a list of operators, string formats, keywords, etc. and asked to spend some time looking into them, defining them for yourself, and playing with them. I spent a good amount of time reading into the way Python's floor/integer division and modulo operations work / differ from other languages and why (if you're interested, Python floors towards negative infinity, not zero, and performing a modulo on negative numbers takes the sign of the divisor, not the dividend, in contrast to some other languages), and spent time toying around with decorators and lambdas.. I kept a spreadsheet of everything I was supposed to learn and my description of it. My interpretation of that lesson is probably a lot different from a beginners, but I think it's a nice example of "you get out of it what you put in." Zed also likes to shove you into the deep end and let you learn to swim. The extra credit assignments don't have answers, they're all about making you play around and learn on your own terms. The lesson above is a good example of "here's a bunch of terms, now go play on your own for a while", which was an interesting change of pace. Also, he gives a solid emphasis on reading other peoples code. There have been at least two lessons so far dealing with that, and I've read over a bunch of reddits code and learned a good amount from that - this was during the first "go find some code" exercise, where you only know the bare minimum of conditionals and looping, so there were a lot more scary "i don't know what that code is doing, but I'm going to find out!" moments, which I found helpful.
joelhooks 15y ago
My 13 year old son is working through Learn Python the Hard way. He likes it a lot and is building things that interest him. He will spend the whole day fiddling with Python working on a text based choose your own adventure game that one of the chapters had him build. He's approached programming a couple of times before, but LPTHW is the first time he's really stuck with it. In that regard, I think Zed is doing an awesome job. I'm looking forward to the REGEX book and want to work through the C book as well.
- zedshaw 15y ago
  That's awesome. It's funny because I didn't even try to write the book for kids, but happy it seems to work well for them.
  - mkopinsky 15y ago
    Kids tend to be, in general, kinda like adults in a lot of ways. Whodathunk? :-)
chrisguitarguy 15y ago
It's just like teaching anything: nothing is really fun until you can do something. I teach guitar, so let me use that as an example: it's my job as a teacher to get students to love the guitar so they (1) continue with it, and (2) come to the next lesson. the only way I can make sure students get excited is if they can do some thing. So I could bog them down with a bunch of theory and stuff, or explain the mechanics of hand movements in very technical detail. But those things really don't matter. What does matter is reducing the essence of a few things into a simple exercise that the student can do and that sounds good. If you took a guitar lesson from me, you'd probably leave the first lesson able to strum a few chords in time. Of course, you just learned a ton of stuff: how to use your fingers on the fretboard, how to keep the beat, how to strum, posture, hand positions -- the list goes on. All you care about, as the student, is that you can do something. You feel successful. You have something to practice. As you progress, you become more interested in the finer details (or you quit) and we go deeper -- explaining music theory, patterns, technique and mechanics, etc. Zed teaches programming the same way. Give the student something to do where they can see immediate results. The ones that stick with it are going to be naturally curious about how things work and will keep going further. I used "Learn Python the Hard Way" as my introduction to programming. It was awesome.
- TWAndrews 15y ago
  Learn Guitar the Hard Way would be an awesome addition to the mix.
capkutay 15y ago
I went through LPTHW without losing motivation, wanting to quit, or being too confused to go on. I'd say this is what really sets it apart from other programming books. Also, very functional. You know what you're doing every step of the way and he tries to speak to you like a person while helping you graspt the material. There were only a few instances doing the extra credit where I really felt stuck. His books force you to write a lot of code. After 1/2 way, I'd genuinely be excited to go to the next chapter. In terms of simulating your own personal CS tutor, LPTHW was awesome.
ramkalari 15y ago
I started doing Ruby yesterday (have done about 8 exercises) and it's been fun so far. The approach is new and it seems very well thought out.
VonLipwig 15y ago
I like Zed Shaw's style. I feel it really helps things stick with the way it is taught. I also feel the 'go find out yourself' methodology sets you up well going forward as you learn to depend on yourself to solve problems instead of the author of the book.
mattwilsoninc 15y ago
I'm on the first legs of the Learn Python the hard way. I like the examples and explanation. Doing it is really the best way to learn. The great aspect about the book/course is that Zed provides examples of pitfalls that come with experience, so you learn the language at a faster rate.

by delwin 15y ago

KevinEldon 15y ago

My brother is working through Learn Ruby The Hard Way, which is not written by Zed, but is based on his Python book. He has no programming experience and seems to be enjoying the work and learning Ruby pretty quickly.

nikcub 15y ago

as a Python dev I scanned the python book and I thought it dwelled too much on string formatting, focused on teaching syntax and not programming, and the language was a bit terse. but then a friend of mine told me that he and a few other people he knew learnt python from that book, so either later revisions got better or my opinion is shit.

zedshaw 15y ago
I don't think your opinion is shit, I just think your perspective has changed because you actually can code. The hardest thing for a beginner is just the syntax. If you've never written code before then the symbols in programming are alien as hell. By focusing on seemingly repetitive syntax drills I get them skilled progressively until syntax isn't a problem. Another thing you might be missing is under each exercise is a real piece of programming they're learning. For example, with string formatting I'm actually teaching the concept of named variables. Later on I use the fact they've actually been using named variables to then teach the concept explicitly and then they get it quicker.
- YuriNiyazov 15y ago
  I agree that syntax is the hardest thing. Based on my experience tutoring, I would add the following (which was surprising to discover at first): the second hardest thing is the order of evaluation. I've seen students write down a = do_something1(do_something2()) and be unable to explain that do_something2() actually happens before do_something1(), and to see that the code is loosely equivalent to b = do_something2() a = do_something1(b)
  - Locke1689 15y ago
    The worst is when you're teaching C and you have to explain that void * a = do_something1(do_something2(), do_something3()); is not equivalent to int b = do_something2(); int c = do_something3(); void * a = do_something1(b, c);
    - YuriNiyazov 15y ago
      Because the order of evaluation of arguments is not defined?
- drmohundro 15y ago
  I'm a CS grad, but I had zero knowledge of programming when I entered college - I knew some basics about HTML and I could fix some basic computer issues but that is it. I remember trying to open an executable in Notepad and thinking to myself, "uh oh, this is going to be really hard." I was still struggling with syntax issues into my second year of school. It's not a good feeling to be debugging null pointer issues and data structures when you're not confident with the syntax.

AgentConundrum 15y ago

I'm about 75% through his Python book, and I have to say I like it. He assumes you're an absolute beginner, and I'm not, so I can't really give it a fair appraisal from the perspective of its target audience. That said, the book definitely makes learning fun. For the first half of the book, you have a really quick learn-reward cycle. The exercises are short and to the point, and he makes you type in the lesson and run it. This means that you type a few lines, then immediately get to see what it did, on your computer. It very much reminds me of when I was in grade 10 and we were doing simple stuff in QBasic. It would definitely grab and keep the interest of an absolute beginner dipping his or her toes into the programming pool for the first time. From the perspective of an experienced programmer - a term I apply to myself with some trepidation - things move a bit slow, but the experienced programmer is definitely not Zed's target with the book. Even being on the slow side, the exercises are quick enough that you can knock out a bunch of lessons quickly if you're so inclined, and I've definitely skipped over a bunch of the "Extra Credit" stuff because of that. I actually did spend the "recommended" week doing Exercise 37, which is sort of a "learn at your own pace" exercise. You're given a list of operators, string formats, keywords, etc. and asked to spend some time looking into them, defining them for yourself, and playing with them. I spent a good amount of time reading into the way Python's floor/integer division and modulo operations work / differ from other languages and why (if you're interested, Python floors towards negative infinity, not zero, and performing a modulo on negative numbers takes the sign of the divisor, not the dividend, in contrast to some other languages), and spent time toying around with decorators and lambdas.. I kept a spreadsheet of everything I was supposed to learn and my description of it. My interpretation of that lesson is probably a lot different from a beginners, but I think it's a nice example of "you get out of it what you put in." Zed also likes to shove you into the deep end and let you learn to swim. The extra credit assignments don't have answers, they're all about making you play around and learn on your own terms. The lesson above is a good example of "here's a bunch of terms, now go play on your own for a while", which was an interesting change of pace. Also, he gives a solid emphasis on reading other peoples code. There have been at least two lessons so far dealing with that, and I've read over a bunch of reddits code and learned a good amount from that - this was during the first "go find some code" exercise, where you only know the bare minimum of conditionals and looping, so there were a lot more scary "i don't know what that code is doing, but I'm going to find out!" moments, which I found helpful.

joelhooks 15y ago

My 13 year old son is working through Learn Python the Hard way. He likes it a lot and is building things that interest him. He will spend the whole day fiddling with Python working on a text based choose your own adventure game that one of the chapters had him build. He's approached programming a couple of times before, but LPTHW is the first time he's really stuck with it. In that regard, I think Zed is doing an awesome job. I'm looking forward to the REGEX book and want to work through the C book as well.

zedshaw 15y ago
That's awesome. It's funny because I didn't even try to write the book for kids, but happy it seems to work well for them.
- mkopinsky 15y ago
  Kids tend to be, in general, kinda like adults in a lot of ways. Whodathunk? :-)

chrisguitarguy 15y ago

It's just like teaching anything: nothing is really fun until you can do something. I teach guitar, so let me use that as an example: it's my job as a teacher to get students to love the guitar so they (1) continue with it, and (2) come to the next lesson. the only way I can make sure students get excited is if they can do some thing. So I could bog them down with a bunch of theory and stuff, or explain the mechanics of hand movements in very technical detail. But those things really don't matter. What does matter is reducing the essence of a few things into a simple exercise that the student can do and that sounds good. If you took a guitar lesson from me, you'd probably leave the first lesson able to strum a few chords in time. Of course, you just learned a ton of stuff: how to use your fingers on the fretboard, how to keep the beat, how to strum, posture, hand positions -- the list goes on. All you care about, as the student, is that you can do something. You feel successful. You have something to practice. As you progress, you become more interested in the finer details (or you quit) and we go deeper -- explaining music theory, patterns, technique and mechanics, etc. Zed teaches programming the same way. Give the student something to do where they can see immediate results. The ones that stick with it are going to be naturally curious about how things work and will keep going further. I used "Learn Python the Hard Way" as my introduction to programming. It was awesome.

TWAndrews 15y ago
Learn Guitar the Hard Way would be an awesome addition to the mix.

capkutay 15y ago

I went through LPTHW without losing motivation, wanting to quit, or being too confused to go on. I'd say this is what really sets it apart from other programming books. Also, very functional. You know what you're doing every step of the way and he tries to speak to you like a person while helping you graspt the material. There were only a few instances doing the extra credit where I really felt stuck. His books force you to write a lot of code. After 1/2 way, I'd genuinely be excited to go to the next chapter. In terms of simulating your own personal CS tutor, LPTHW was awesome.

ramkalari 15y ago

I started doing Ruby yesterday (have done about 8 exercises) and it's been fun so far. The approach is new and it seems very well thought out.

VonLipwig 15y ago

I like Zed Shaw's style. I feel it really helps things stick with the way it is taught. I also feel the 'go find out yourself' methodology sets you up well going forward as you learn to depend on yourself to solve problems instead of the author of the book.

mattwilsoninc 15y ago

I'm on the first legs of the Learn Python the hard way. I like the examples and explanation. Doing it is really the best way to learn. The great aspect about the book/course is that Zed provides examples of pitfalls that come with experience, so you learn the language at a faster rate.