Teaching new skills, programming languages, frameworks, ways to get in the zone, remembering, and generally improving other's skills. Closely related to learning.
5
votes
9answers
425 views
Is it sensible to teach programming with a language I don't know myself (yet)?
I have a friend who has asked me to teach him how to program.
I was thinking that using a language that I do not know could be beneficial because:
I will learn something new too.
That will make me ...
12
votes
11answers
2k views
Why is Python recommended as an entry level programming language?
I've read here on P.SE more questions in which beginner programmers are advised to pick Python as their first programming language.
Don't get me wrong, I like Python. I like it a lot! But its ...
6
votes
7answers
665 views
Finding a Programming “Mentor” [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How to find programming mentor?
I've been programming for a while. I've read several books, have tried out several languages (Perl, Ruby, Python, C++, .NET, HTML, CSS, ...
225
votes
32answers
11k views
How can I deal with the cargo-cult programming attitude?
I have some computer science students in a compulsory introductory programming course who see a programming language as a set of magic spells, which must be cast in order to achieve some effect ...
3
votes
2answers
196 views
What should be changed in the system used to teach IT in my school? [closed]
I am a student at an Italian "technical institute" where we're taught industrial subjects, with a degree of flexibility over the topics covered in class.
Our school is a mix between college and high ...
20
votes
27answers
3k views
What language should an 11-year old start with to learn game programming? [closed]
I have a 11-year old son who wants to do game programming. I've started him on C++ (C++11) and he's learned iostreams, looping, functions, logic and flow control. I'm using the standard library and ...
18
votes
14answers
2k views
University teaches DOS-style C++, how to deal with it
Half a year ago I had a look at available programming educations. I chose this one because unlike most of the choices: The majority of the courses seemed to be about something concrete and useful; the ...
12
votes
8answers
869 views
Should I teach my students alloca?
How widely used is alloca in the real world? Should I teach my students to use alloca when it makes sense? Or should I teach them never to use it? Coming from a C++ RAII background, the idea of not ...
15
votes
11answers
793 views
What language and topics should be covered when teaching non-CS college students how to program?
I have been asked by many of my non-computer science friends to teach them how to program. I have agreed to hold a seminar for them that will last for approximately 1 to 2 hours.
My thoughts are to ...
5
votes
2answers
460 views
Recommendations for teaching kids math concepts & skills for programming? [closed]
I've got two very bright kids who are showing interest in learning programming. Of course their primary goal is to develop video games. They have decided they want to be game developers when they ...
17
votes
4answers
713 views
How should I go about fixing code from a less-experienced programmer?
A little background: I am one of two programmers for our department of 10 people (the rest are artists and management). The two of us do all of the coding required to make things flow well, and ...
6
votes
1answer
234 views
What is a good toy project to teach an introduction to DVCS?
Context
I will be coaching student's programming projects in my engineering faculty (group of <10 students).
At this occasion I wanted to draw the student's attention to the usefulness of version ...
4
votes
12answers
1k views
What is the best way to introduce algorithms to undergraduate students?
If you are given the task of designing the courses leading up to a degree in computer science and are allowed just two courses on the topic of 'Algorithms', how would you structure the courses? My ...
28
votes
13answers
2k views
Tutoring students who are struggling with the basics in C++
I am tutoring a few students who are having significant trouble learning the basics of their first programming language: C++. I have known many excellent and bright students who have failed or dropped ...
45
votes
18answers
3k views
Recursion without factorial, Fibonacci numbers etc
Almost every article about recursion includes examples with factorial or Fibonacci numbers which are a) math b) useless in real life. Are there some interesting non-math code examples to teach ...
32
votes
17answers
4k views
Teaching C++ to first time high school students: Where to draw the line?
I will be mentoring a team of high school students for the FIRST Robotics Competition, most teams here develop[ their robot software using C++. For many of the students on the team this will be their ...
34
votes
12answers
2k views
How do I teach to my brother how to program?
My brother is 12, and he's asked me several times to teach him how to program. I'm confident that I'm not a terrible programmer, but I don't see myself as an effective teacher. I taught myself most of ...
40
votes
9answers
3k views
What is the most orthogonal programming language?
I find myself repeatedly annoyed by having to teach freshmen about special language rules (like array-to-pointer decay) that have absolutely nothing to do with programming in itself. So I wondered:
...
3
votes
6answers
3k views
Example for explaining object-oriented concepts
What are some good examples for illustrating the concepts of object-oriented programming? I'm talking about sample classes, classes that would have inheritance, overriding, etc.
The only one I can ...
6
votes
4answers
638 views
What is the correct way of training a fresher?
I am a freshman hired in an IT company in India. A lot of my friends have also been placed with different companies. Some of them have been trained online, Some in Classroom, and still some others (me ...
3
votes
1answer
287 views
Teaching Programming: drawbacks of using unit tests in problem statement for assignments?
I am experimenting with marking assignments for a programming course using unit tests. Is it likely to harm the learning process if I publish some of the tests I use as part of the problem statement? ...
4
votes
4answers
337 views
Good coding problem for teaching and practicing how to write good unit tests?
Every once and a while I find myself teaching others some techniques useful for writing effective unit tests (usually in Java where many people find writing tests challenging). However, I have yet to ...
87
votes
11answers
41k views
How can I teach a bright person, with no programming experience, how to program? [closed]
I have been asked to take a person in our IT department who has no programming experience but is a smart and capable person and help him move into programming at lets say an entry level developer ...
25
votes
15answers
1k views
What shall I include in a 10 week web technologies course?
In September I will be teaching a university module on web technologies. This session will be available to 1st year (freshman) students who don't necessarily have any programming knowledge or know ...
2
votes
4answers
339 views
Teaching programmer looking for a simple statically and weakly typed language
I'm trying to illustrate the differences between the four different type systems -- static vs. dynamic typing and weak vs. strong typing.
Dynamic + weak = JavaScript
Dynaimc + strong = Python
...
12
votes
4answers
217 views
Should I be helping and explaining?
This is more of a philosophical question, I suppose, but it seems quite well suited to here, to me.
I'm a 20-year-old, second year software engineering student, with a good history in development, ...
15
votes
9answers
2k views
How do I explain “Recursion” to a 8 years old kid? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
In plain English, what is recursion?
What is the best way to explain "Recursion" to 8 years old kid?
I tried with the Fibonacci Series but i failed.
100
votes
34answers
35k views
30 minutes to explain programming to a 15 year old
I've been volunteered to sit down and talk about the life and work of a Developer with a 15 year old work experience student next week.
The catches are that
I've got just half an hour, and
I'll be ...
2
votes
11answers
627 views
What to teach a 12-year-old VB programmer about programming in general [duplicate]
I am mentoring a 12-year old in programming.
He has started to do some VB (.net) (2008) and is making simple WinForms programs, but does not get some of the basic concepts (loops, functions, ...
17
votes
4answers
2k views
Is Haskell good at teaching fundamentals of mathematics?
I'm involved in teaching mathematics to classes with requirements such as AS and A level Mathematics specification.
Class books normally provide examples of computer software applied to mathematics ...
9
votes
8answers
240 views
Any guidelines for correcting others technical inaccuracies?
How often do you correct others when they say something that is inaccurate?
For example I recently corrected someone when they kept referring to a forward slash as a backslash. He made the reference ...
16
votes
10answers
2k views
12 year old son interested in Android programming [closed]
So, my 12 year old son is interested in programming for Android. He's never done a real program before, but he did play briefly with Alice. I'm trying to figure out what the best way to introduce him ...
8
votes
6answers
3k views
Recommendation for a platform to teach game development to kids [closed]
My 11 years old son decided he want to create a Web game. He does not know much about programming and I never did any game development so I'm not the best teacher of the topic. On one hand I really ...
2
votes
3answers
318 views
What should be “D” for a good unit test?
I'm trying to introduce what is unit testing, and how to write good unit test to a friend. I think it's better if I give him some principles for a good unit test, and suddenly I remember about "ACID" ...
1
vote
2answers
280 views
Giving presentation on git
I'm going to be giving a presentation to a group of neuroscientists on the use of git to manage their matlab/r/xppaut/etc files. Some of these folks have an extensive software engineering background, ...
7
votes
4answers
2k views
Displaying code in Power Point (or other presentation software)?
I'm going to be introducing LINQ to my co-workers next week. I'm starting with an existing method from our production code and slowly converting it to use LINQ.
I don't want to take the time to ...
15
votes
4answers
779 views
How would you teach C# delegate to a newbie?
I was reviewing Andrew Troelsen book on C# 4.0. The part that explains delegates starts as smooth as:
public class SimpleMath
{
//declare delegate
public delegate int BinaryOp(int x, int y);
...
8
votes
3answers
429 views
C++ for Java Programmers
I am going to have a lecture about C++ for experienced Java programmers. Because C++ is a big language and I have just one lecture, I want to point out the most important "gotchas" and C++ features ...
7
votes
5answers
936 views
Teaching Programming to Kid / Teen [closed]
I know this topic has be discussed before, but I thought this might be a bit more of a detailed question... A family friend is a 12yr old boy with ADHD, and a very bright kid at that. He seems to ...
6
votes
2answers
125 views
Developer “Foreign Exchange Program” Across Teams
Where I work, we currently have three teams all working on one product. We've had some talks and agreed that there could be a lot of benefits to doing an 'exchange' program where a member of one team ...
16
votes
3answers
1k views
How can I teach my co-workers the SOLID principles?
I've got a group of very talented, yet new, developers on my team. I've fully embraced the SOLID principles in the projects I'm working on, and my fellow developers have seen the wisdom of the ways - ...
2
votes
4answers
399 views
Should every front-end developer understand the basic aspects of design?
I'd say that we're developing software in a world where the front-end of an application is probably the most important. The increasing ability for a user to access and interact with software almost ...
13
votes
8answers
834 views
What are good dynamics that can improve learning in a web programming course?
At my company we are starting a course for free that will cover 4 modules (HTML / CSS and W3C Standards, Javascript and jQuery, PHP, MySQL) during 7 months. The main goal is to be able to train new ...
9
votes
2answers
702 views
Which programming language first introduced 'Hello World'
Which programming language first introduced 'Hello World' as a first program to code for beginners?
6
votes
8answers
3k views
Why Java as a First Language?
Why is Java so popular as a first language to teach beginners? To me it seems like a terrible choice:
It's statically typed. Static typing isn't useful unless you care a lot about either ...
8
votes
9answers
877 views
How to teach computer science? [closed]
I am just starting to teach computer science. It's just the basic level. I'm finding that I sometimes don't know how to approach topics in a way that lets students easily understand.
I've found that ...
4
votes
9answers
1k views
How Can I Make My Programming Class More Interesting?
I already found a similar question here on SO, but almost all of the answers were more philosophical, rather than practical.
I'd like some PRACTICAL ideas about how to make my programming course more ...
12
votes
4answers
371 views
Didactic approaches to teach versioning with Git
I have already taught versioning with Git, but I think it could be more enjoyable for the guys I teach if I use another approach to teach them.
The guys I mentioned before were used to working with ...
15
votes
15answers
1k views
Explaining interfaces to beginning programmers?
I've had discussions with other programmers on interfaces (C#). I tried to use the analogy of interfaces being like a contract between programmers. Meaning that when you design to an interface, you ...
21
votes
20answers
2k views
How would you explain multi threading to a seven year old kid?
If you have to explain the concept of multi-threading to a seven year old kid how would you do it? I recently got this question in an interview. I came up with a story using jobs (the task to be done) ...
