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This doesn't work well, in my experience. Non-programmers don't want to program -- they want to get a computer to do something. As a teacher, it's your job to

This doesn't work well, in my experience. Non-programmers don't want to program -- they want to get a computer to do something. As a teacher, it's your job to seduce them into programming as a way to get the computer to do what they want it to do. I learned to program, not because I wanted to program in the abstract, but because my friend's dad showed him how to make a little car drive across the screen, and I wanted to do the same. I spent hours typing programs in from books, not because I wanted to program, but because I wanted to get 3d shapes moving around. When I taught programming classes, I'd often digress to talk about some interesting abstract concept -- and immediately lose 90% of the class. Start practical, and enrich from there, as the material becomes relevant.

trustfundbaby 15y ago
I came here just to agree with this ... I took Computer Engineering in college, did quite a bit of C++, Assembly programming and Data Structures ... but I really didn't 'get' any of it, even though I could pass tests and ace my finals. It wasn't until I happened on a PHP tutorial that showed how you could post user information to a db and replace a section that once said "login" with "Welcome xxxx" that it all clicked. My brain started to go crazy with possibilities and I immediately started trying to learn EVERYTHING about programming. I spent hours on Sitepoint, printing out articles and just reading them over and over, and trying them out. (I still have the huge stack of printouts in a section of my home office as a reminder of all the work I put it ... you know ... when I start to doubt myself). I had learned OOP in college but I really didn't get it ... one day I went to Barnes and Noble and spent the whole day reading a Head Start OOP book ... and I 'got' it. I felt like Neo in the Matrix (I know Kung Fu!!!) The point of the story is ... keep all the boring crap out of the way at first, get beginners excited about building things, that will give them the passion that will carry them through the (necessary) minutae later.

trustfundbaby 15y ago

I came here just to agree with this ... I took Computer Engineering in college, did quite a bit of C++, Assembly programming and Data Structures ... but I really didn't 'get' any of it, even though I could pass tests and ace my finals. It wasn't until I happened on a PHP tutorial that showed how you could post user information to a db and replace a section that once said "login" with "Welcome xxxx" that it all clicked. My brain started to go crazy with possibilities and I immediately started trying to learn EVERYTHING about programming. I spent hours on Sitepoint, printing out articles and just reading them over and over, and trying them out. (I still have the huge stack of printouts in a section of my home office as a reminder of all the work I put it ... you know ... when I start to doubt myself). I had learned OOP in college but I really didn't get it ... one day I went to Barnes and Noble and spent the whole day reading a Head Start OOP book ... and I 'got' it. I felt like Neo in the Matrix (I know Kung Fu!!!) The point of the story is ... keep all the boring crap out of the way at first, get beginners excited about building things, that will give them the passion that will carry them through the (necessary) minutae later.