| Yes! I've found the most valuable thing is often good, uncluttered examples. Docs are often focused entirely on the API's but don't have enough to show you how to use them, and Google/SO can be a rabbit hole of examples that are overcomplicated or misleading. "Try something like this" (with comments) goes a long way. So much of being a beginner is not having been exposed to patterns and techniques. They need to fill our their toolbox, and in doing that, make sure to walk through what the code does and why, since nobody benefits from cargo-culting. Let's see, also... 1. Teach interactive shell and debugging early. It's life changing. 2. Make sure to assign them entire projects. The fastest way to burn out a beginner is give them a series of small tasks in code they don't really understand. 3. Chill out on code review. Limit yourself to a few suggestions for each PR. If you offer two suggestions and rationale, they might say "aha, that makes sense" and remember that. If you offer 15, nothing will stick. |
Point 3 is something I haven't thought of yet. During reviews I pointed on some issues, not every. But that was never something I had a specific reason for, I was just focused on what we want to learn in this lesson.
I will keep that even more in mind now.