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As someone who was a beginning, community college CS 101 coder at one time, I think focusing on the mechanical, "this code won't compile unless every i is dotte
by ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
As someone who was a beginning, community college CS 101 coder at one time, I think focusing on the mechanical, "this code won't compile unless every i is dotted and t is crossed" way of thinking is only half the story. Getting code to compile, after about the 2nd week of class, isn't too hard. Figuring out why your code doesn't give the right result, even when it compiles and runs, is by far a harder skill for new coders to pick up.
- danso 11y agoOh I agree, completely -- silent failures can confuse even experienced programmers. But it's very hard to get to the higher-level reasoning, i.e. does this code actually work...if you are continually tripping up on syntax. Moreover, a failure to understand the implications of the syntax can limit your ability to code. For example, for beginners, it is not immediately evident that the two following code snippets are equivalent: a = "Hello world" b = a.lower() print(b) and: print("Hello world".lower()) This isn't just a problem of recognizing the simple logic...but that when you're new to code, it takes more mental energy -- at first -- to pick apart the symbols and process them efficiently. And that mental energy is largely from the same reservoir that is used to process the higher-level concepts.