6 ms·

Then you've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner. Not just that, but what programming should be like. Hello-world shouldn't need more than two elements.

by pg 18y ago

gnaritas 18y ago
I think some people just forget that the machine should be working for the human rather than vice versa.
axod 18y ago
I think judging a language by "Hello-world" is a mistake. Sure, some languages have a fixed overhead for creating a program. Some have needless syntax fluff that doesn't do all that much, but it's actually a good skill IMHO to be able to identify and see through that fluff to the core elements of the code. When we pick up a book do we judge it based on the index at the back and the preface and the publishing info at the start? We probably just ignore those bits. I think in these sorts of classes it'd actually be a good idea to spend several weeks looking at other peoples code and analyzing what it does. Being able to read code properly is a really important skill I think people should master before they even start with writing hello-world themselves.
- baha_man 18y ago
  "I think in these sorts of classes it'd actually be a good idea to spend several weeks looking at other peoples code and analyzing what it does." I think that would just result in a lot of students dropping out. As a beginner, it's nice to get the computer to actually do something - even if it's just printing out a stupid message.
  - axod 18y ago
    "I think that would just result in a lot of students dropping out." Good. Perhaps there would be less mediocre/bad developers around.
- gnaritas 18y ago
  Like I said earlier, you've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner or you've not had much experience with teaching them. Beginners don't need to be able to see through fluff, they can't, the fluff needs to be gone entirely. They need to be taught with languages that have no fluff so they learn the basics of thinking logically, algorithmically. They aren't ready to deal with the complexities of dealing with a particular languages quirks and learning to please its compiler with voodoo incantations like int, char, string, long, etc. They aren't even ready to understand that there are differences between languages, so their first language needs to be one that teaches concepts that apply to all languages. They need to learn what functions are, what conditionals are, what loops are, what recursion is, in their simplest forms, and more than anything they need to see immediate success and running programs or they won't maintain interest long enough to get anywhere near the harder optional stuff like types and compiled languages. As soon as types come into play, you've advanced to an intermediate level, way over the head of beginners. Beginners and manifest/statically typed languages do not mix well. The closest a student should get to Java, is JavaScript, but they'd be much better off learning Python, Scheme, and Smalltalk before getting anywhere near any of C's bastard children.
  - axod 18y ago
    I disagree completely. One of the best skills to learn is to see through fluff and understand what is going on. I'd actually say that the best first language to learn would be assembly language. It's insanely simple, but there's a lot of fluff, so you have to learn how to 'read' code in terms of overall structure/flow instead of focusing on each individual instruction. I'm still not convinced learning in classes is going to produce anything but mediocre programmers though.
    - gnaritas 18y ago
      Learning to see through the fluff is not a beginner skill. I'll just stop here and say I think you'd make a poor teacher because you show little if any empathy or awareness of what it means to not know something or how important it is for a beginner to have small successes and working programs right from the start.
- cia_plant 18y ago
  I find that the preface of a book is often highly indicative of the content of the book. The preface of a good book will generally talk about a few abstract themes which guide the exposition. The preface of a poor book will be a sort of random collection of notes, ideas, and guidelines. One textbook I looked at (on EE) started with a paragraph that went something like "Scientists understand the world by creating models. A model reflects reality. A model has components, each one of which corresponds to something in the world." The book was, unsurprisingly, no good. In a similar way, Java's verbosity in even the simplest examples speaks to a certain kind of language design. Java's design is based on indulgence in the idea that difficult things can be made somehow easier or more reliable if the difficulty is hidden by a lot of simple, but needless verbiage.

Then you've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner. Not just that, but what programming should be like. Hello-world shouldn't need more than two elements.

by pg 18y ago

Then you've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner. Not just that, but what programming should be like. Hello-world shouldn't need more than two elements.

gnaritas 18y ago

I think some people just forget that the machine should be working for the human rather than vice versa.

axod 18y ago

I think judging a language by "Hello-world" is a mistake. Sure, some languages have a fixed overhead for creating a program. Some have needless syntax fluff that doesn't do all that much, but it's actually a good skill IMHO to be able to identify and see through that fluff to the core elements of the code. When we pick up a book do we judge it based on the index at the back and the preface and the publishing info at the start? We probably just ignore those bits. I think in these sorts of classes it'd actually be a good idea to spend several weeks looking at other peoples code and analyzing what it does. Being able to read code properly is a really important skill I think people should master before they even start with writing hello-world themselves.

baha_man 18y ago
"I think in these sorts of classes it'd actually be a good idea to spend several weeks looking at other peoples code and analyzing what it does." I think that would just result in a lot of students dropping out. As a beginner, it's nice to get the computer to actually do something - even if it's just printing out a stupid message.
- axod 18y ago
  "I think that would just result in a lot of students dropping out." Good. Perhaps there would be less mediocre/bad developers around.
gnaritas 18y ago
Like I said earlier, you've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner or you've not had much experience with teaching them. Beginners don't need to be able to see through fluff, they can't, the fluff needs to be gone entirely. They need to be taught with languages that have no fluff so they learn the basics of thinking logically, algorithmically. They aren't ready to deal with the complexities of dealing with a particular languages quirks and learning to please its compiler with voodoo incantations like int, char, string, long, etc. They aren't even ready to understand that there are differences between languages, so their first language needs to be one that teaches concepts that apply to all languages. They need to learn what functions are, what conditionals are, what loops are, what recursion is, in their simplest forms, and more than anything they need to see immediate success and running programs or they won't maintain interest long enough to get anywhere near the harder optional stuff like types and compiled languages. As soon as types come into play, you've advanced to an intermediate level, way over the head of beginners. Beginners and manifest/statically typed languages do not mix well. The closest a student should get to Java, is JavaScript, but they'd be much better off learning Python, Scheme, and Smalltalk before getting anywhere near any of C's bastard children.
- axod 18y ago
  I disagree completely. One of the best skills to learn is to see through fluff and understand what is going on. I'd actually say that the best first language to learn would be assembly language. It's insanely simple, but there's a lot of fluff, so you have to learn how to 'read' code in terms of overall structure/flow instead of focusing on each individual instruction. I'm still not convinced learning in classes is going to produce anything but mediocre programmers though.
  - gnaritas 18y ago
    Learning to see through the fluff is not a beginner skill. I'll just stop here and say I think you'd make a poor teacher because you show little if any empathy or awareness of what it means to not know something or how important it is for a beginner to have small successes and working programs right from the start.
cia_plant 18y ago
I find that the preface of a book is often highly indicative of the content of the book. The preface of a good book will generally talk about a few abstract themes which guide the exposition. The preface of a poor book will be a sort of random collection of notes, ideas, and guidelines. One textbook I looked at (on EE) started with a paragraph that went something like "Scientists understand the world by creating models. A model reflects reality. A model has components, each one of which corresponds to something in the world." The book was, unsurprisingly, no good. In a similar way, Java's verbosity in even the simplest examples speaks to a certain kind of language design. Java's design is based on indulgence in the idea that difficult things can be made somehow easier or more reliable if the difficulty is hidden by a lot of simple, but needless verbiage.