3 ms·

Programming is fun, but learning to program from zero is boring. And that's partly because the way it's being lectured. Learning to program it's like learning

Programming is fun, but learning to program from zero is boring. And that's partly because the way it's being lectured. Learning to program it's like learning to speak a new language. And learning a new language is boring when all you can do is completing some monotonous exercises with no evident real life use. It's 2022, computers have become way bigger and complex since 1980, and "look this device can prompt for a number in the terminal and multiply it!" Does not excite everyone anymore. Also, the distance from "hello world" to "use your coding skills creatively" is really high, and a lot of people just bail before they get to that goal. We should play more with integrated circuits, where a few lines in C, Go or Rust can generate something tangible, ann slowly raise the level to effective modern code. Humans learn through experience, with actions and with the expectation of some feedback with results. Solving a buttloads of mindless exercises that have no distinctive purpose is not a good way of learning

hellisothers 4y ago
I can’t relate to this experience, is this referring to university CS programs? Any online lesson or coding camp will have you doing something constructive on day one.
satyrnein 4y ago
Solving a buttloads of mindless exercises that have no distinctive purpose is not a good way of learning I agree but I think for non-engineers, starting from circuits is not the best approach. Just the same way everyone uses Excel, I think no-code tools may evolve into something that everyone uses.
gyulai 4y ago
> Also, the distance from "hello world" to "use your coding skills creatively" is really high, and a lot of people just bail before they get to that goal. I agree. When I got into programming as a teenager in the 90s, you could pretty quickly go from having fun with IBM Logo, to learning Turbo Pascal, to writing an application in Delphi that, e.g. your uncle running a small business can get actual use out of. It's probably not like that any more. What you get out of your effort is probably a narrower specialization now than you would have gotten back then, or, conversely, you'd have to put in a lot more effort to become similarly versatile as you would have been back then.

hellisothers 4y ago

I can’t relate to this experience, is this referring to university CS programs? Any online lesson or coding camp will have you doing something constructive on day one.

satyrnein 4y ago

Solving a buttloads of mindless exercises that have no distinctive purpose is not a good way of learning I agree but I think for non-engineers, starting from circuits is not the best approach. Just the same way everyone uses Excel, I think no-code tools may evolve into something that everyone uses.

gyulai 4y ago

> Also, the distance from "hello world" to "use your coding skills creatively" is really high, and a lot of people just bail before they get to that goal. I agree. When I got into programming as a teenager in the 90s, you could pretty quickly go from having fun with IBM Logo, to learning Turbo Pascal, to writing an application in Delphi that, e.g. your uncle running a small business can get actual use out of. It's probably not like that any more. What you get out of your effort is probably a narrower specialization now than you would have gotten back then, or, conversely, you'd have to put in a lot more effort to become similarly versatile as you would have been back then.