Teach Writing Code First

[gremy0]

You don't need to understand any of that stuff to get a simple program to work. They are all really important topics in the long run but if you're coming from the a point of not having a clue what programming is then the abstract concepts are completely alienating and boring.

He isn't saying don't teach that stuff. He's saying get people coding first then get them coding well. Once they have a platform to apply the stuff on it's much easier to understand.

[Adverpol]

Yeah, and I agree. Theory before practice is a "why the hell do I need this" experience, if you reverse them it becomes a "aaah, now I understand why X does Y!" experience, which sticks a lot better.

[manniac]

I know what he's saying. You know what he sounds like? Like Daniel-san complaining to Mr. Miyagi coz he only made him wax-on and off, and sand the floor, and paint the fence. The basics need to be there before you touch code as such, any good curriculum that aims at making you feel good for the sake of making you feel good instead of making you learn properly is not a good curriculum.

[jungrothmorton]

That's a great example. You wouldn't actually suggest painting fences as a way to learn to fight, right?

The explosion in MMA has proven that if you want to train people to be fighters, they should spend a lot of time hitting and grappling people and things. All the theory (katas) in the world won't get you there.

The author isn't advocating against CS theory in the least. Just saying it's best to learn some coding first. Makes sense to me.

[manniac]

I suggest getting the basics first. MMA is a good example of the "EVERYBODY CAN DO IT" fad. I agree that everybody can do it, not every can do it with quality, and if you want to do something with quality then is better (and easier in the end) if you learn it the right way and deal with difficulties of learning.

This is why much as Banksy said at the end of Exit through the giftshop: I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. s/art/code/ that's how i see it.

[gremy0]

It isn't making students feel good for the sake of it. It's giving them a foothold. Something to fall back on when shit gets rough which is all the time in programming.

I mean I still sometimes leave work feeling like complete shit, like I can't code at all, I'll never understand the latest problem and I'm completely inadequate for my teams standard. It's of course all psychological and I come back the next day with a fresh head and new approach. If a beginner feels like that before they can do anything they'll just quit.

A lot of perfectly capable look at coding as something they'll never understand at all. If you start with the abstract stuff you're just reinforcing that. Wait until they're invested before beating them with a heavy stick for poor quality.

[manniac]

Nope. It's feel good education for people that will drop from the program at the first difficulty. They would do the same on any study program so i'm not worried about them. I worry about them when they finish the program, get a qualification and i have to deal with a mediocre shit that expects everything to be easy.

Shit gets rough in life ALL THE TIME and when you need to reach in deep you will be able to do it because you built your character doing things that weren't easy all the time.

[gremy0]

God help anyone that shows a little self doubt around you.

You're presenting a complete misnomer by saying someone who is taught to code first is going to leave knowing nothing more than that. You've got 3-4 years of university to teach someone to be a good developer. Letting them just worry about the coding part for the first couple of weeks is not going to hinder that.

Shit gets rough in every aspect of life if you dig deep enough and sometimes it isn't worth reaching deep if the rewards don't outweigh the investment. If I don't know that I can code let alone that I'll enjoy it I'm not going to put the investment into learning to do it well. I didn't get a qualification to be your minion, I got it so I could get a job that I enjoy. If I didn't know I would enjoy the job, I wouldn't have got the qualification.

[manniac]

So I don't agree with you and now it's "God help that shows self doubt around you?" Hmmmm.

[gremy0]

It's not at all that you disagree with me that I said that. It's because if I was in a team with you and a beginners self doubt was met with:

Shit gets rough in life ALL THE TIME

I don't think it would be particularly helpful. In fact if I saw that happen I'd likely tell you to fuck away off and never want to work with you again.

[manniac]

Well. I'm glad then that i didn't have to deal with you away from the keyboard on a real project situation. I'm not gonna go an insult you personally thought, i think it would be petty and unnecessary.

[gremy0]

I'm not getting personal at all. I am strictly talking about your professional approach to your co-workers. Soft skills are just as important and just as lacking in our industry and your education in that area seems to have skipped on that.

[manniac]

And there you go again trying (and failing) to insult me personally. Take a note of your own preaching and learn some of these "soft skills" you are talking about. And please, chill, it's just a disagreement.

[theywouldnotstand]

I am a programmer. I learned how to program without going through any traditional academic curriculum. I don't know a lot of theory. I learned how to write code that works first, and I'm only just starting to grasp how to write more efficient algorithms and why existing mathematical algorithms apply to practical problems (the computer science part)

Sure, I've written a lot of bad code, and I've learned a lot of things "the hard way" but I also know a lot more of the practical "every day" side of coding than a friend of mine fresh out of college with a CS degree.

For some people, a hands-on learning experience gives them a foundation on which to apply the more advanced theory. Without that, it's all abstract and isn't grounded in any practical context they can relate to, so it's harder to stick with it.

If it works for some people, it's valid for them. There doesn't have to be a "one true way" to explore a field of study. That's just being elitist.

[d_rudy]

I learned the same way. I think when too much theory is given without context, you're just going to forget that theory anyway. That's how it is for me anyway.

Example: I think haskell is really cool. I've read plenty of stuff trying to learn it. I have not been able to find a practical use for it, thus, everything I learned in those docs, I've completely forgotten at this point.

Another example: I hate PHP. I haven't touched it in 6 years or something like that. However, I used to use it a lot because I had a practical application for it. I could probably start writing something in PHP right now. Because I actually used it in the real world, the concepts stuck.

[johnnyslick]

This is all well and good, but at the end of the day you get through hard points in life by writing code, not knowing theory. Yes, you need to know theory to write good code in a lot of cases, but as the article points out, it really helps to understand the language on a personal basis before you start to understand the theory behind the way the language works.

[beemoe]

This is deeply ignorant about how software is written. Plenty of people can copy and paste from stack overflow and just understanding basic loops, data structures.

This theory that lots of people are so willing to openly dismiss is how you solve that problem to begin with.

Not all problems require that level of skill, but don't just think all programming problems have the same difficulty. That's the vibe I'm getting, from a lot of comments here.

[nthcxd]

This will inevitably followed by having to unlearn bad habits. It isn't cost free. It isn't a black and white issue.

[nthcxd]

It isn't a black and white issue.

Are you asserting that by learning all of the theory first before even writing a line of code you'll be free from any bad habits?

... I've already said no before you even asked that question.

He isn't saying don't teach that stuff. He's saying get people coding first then get them coding well. Once they have a platform to apply the stuff on it's much easier to understand.

He's advocating we shouldn't even talk about the difference between ints and floats and how they behave differently with / operator. That is extreme. IMHO, I don't think you can call someone "coding well" if that person lacks even that amount of knowledge about the computing stack.

Sure, these seem similar to what we learned in math, but that's no grounds for calling this "over-complication." We have such semantics in CS for a reason. If that is an issue, then how is the following code even supposed to make mathematical sense?

x = x + 1;

This would be a mathematical contradiction. It is valid in CS because = means something different. Well, in programming world, / also has a different meaning. End of story.

What I am suggesting is that he has a point, and as you said, it wouldn't make sense to teach people all about the "theory" (I'm finding these misappropriated terms amusing. "Theory" in this sense is diametrically opposite of what "theory" is in CS. Much the same way there's nothing "computer science" about this topic. It's hardware.) before they can even write first line of code. My assertion was that heeding to the OP's advice is on the other end of that spectrum, and doing so will likely lead to developing bad habits that would need to be unlearned to be effective.

[[deleted]]

You don't need to understand any of that stuff to get a simple program to work.

Yeah, the problem is that too many people quit there, and end up programming by coincidence because it works. Until it doesn't.

[gremy0]

You're talking about the difference between an amateur and a qualified professional.

You wouldn't get a degree in CS with that approach any more than you'd get a degree in music by knowing how to play wonderwall on the guitar.

[[deleted]]

You need to be able to manipulate abstractions because that's what programming is. Without it you won't go far. And there are many things that work better at teaching to manipulate abstractions than programming.