|
|
|
|
|
|
by faizshah
2619 days ago
|
|
|
There’s a lot of knowledge we take for granted when programming. A lot of problems in coding come from having an inadequate mental model, so I always try to explain how code runs on the machine as my first lesson. I’ll give an example, to an experienced programmer you can look at code and tell what sequence the lines are going to run in and what sequence the expressions will probably be evaluated in. To a new programmer this isn’t obvious and they can make mistakes by making assumptions based on the code running at the same time and having an inaccurate view of the state at different points in a program. I also think people dont emphasize how to find solutions to problems enough. Most time spent coding is spent trying to find someone else’s solution to something and figuring out how to apply it to your code. For example, a strategy like searching on google with site:news.ycombinator.com or site:github.com is not as obvious as you might think it is. Everyone has strategies for finding libraries, tutorials, and docs you should try to share them with students. |
|
|
Unless the code/language is asynchronous - which requires a different mindset. And/or event driven - yet another mindset.
I've seen developers struggle with both; I know when I first learned event-driven programming (via Visual Basic 3 - yep, that long ago) - it was a different thing to think about, but it eventually became second nature. Windows 3.x cooperative multitasking helped to make it clear, too).
But yeah - they have to start somewhere, and sequential processing is the standard entry point, because most people understand cause-and-effect in the real world.
Technically, they also understand asynchronous and event-driven models, too - because both are real-world things as well - but they really don't think of them that way - or at least don't use those terms (if they think about them at all). Figuring out what terms they do use for those type of things might be key in teaching them such concepts...