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2021-08-20
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Can I ask for some help bringing attention to this HN post? (my first ever, I think): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28243234 🙏 💜
@deleted-user I have the impression that nobody knows how people learn to program, and where they fail. The most comprehensive attempt of a pedagogically sound approach I've found over the years is the https://htdp.org/2021-5-4/Book/index.html (if you are willing to overlook the glaring character flaws of the author).
I guess that still the only thing that really seems to work is the same as in other fields: peer instruction (aka the flipped classroom)
Though even with that I don't think it's known whether people learn because they are forced to also instruct, or whether their peers understand beginner level problems more intuitively and are therefore better instructors
Certainly it's easy enough to see faults in tools (bad error messages etc) but I recall reading that improving these doesn't actually make a material difference in learning results. It just feels nicer (bit like overall in "pseudo teaching" or "pseudo learning")
There are numerous related "problems", like the "two humps" where it seems like some people just get it, and some don't, resulting in a non bell-curve in test results. But nobody really seems to explain why, and for example all the different kinds of estimators for future CS academic performance seems to be just bullshit in the end
Semi related to the flipped classroom. I’ve never learnt as much about Clojure as when I worked with the welcome_to_clojure.clj
guide. Explaining things to others that are not super clear to myself forced me to read up and experiment like crazy.
I'm by no means an expert, or even much in the field, but there was a time of my life around 10–5 years ago when I was teaching programming to kids and teachers, and I tried to dive into this topic
Felienne Hermans has been doing research on this for years and has a book with a lot of great info called The Programmer’s Brain
Releases Sept 28 2021 in paperback on Amazon DE. Is it new, @U064X3EF3?
yes, most of it is in available in beta form
she runs a lab that is all about studying how programmers learn to program

Thanks. I seem to be able to read most of it from that link. Also ordered it now. Arrives Oct 14-18. 😃
Sounds like newer stuff than what was available few years ago. Or I was just bad at doing literature research 😉
Oh, wow, specialized in spreadsheet coding techniques! Talking about a pragmatic approach
I mean usuall CS researchers seem to start by inventing a language. Ok approximation is another university language that nobody uses >_<
And moving from spreadsheets to other programming languages about the time I got kids. Good good, that saves my self perception 😉
@U064X3EF3 This is badly off topic, but since you linked it you might have bought the book… Are Manning epubs DRM free? They say > Our eBooks come in Kindle, ePub, and DRM-free PDF formats which kinda sounds like other formats do have DRM. And I don't have a kindle, but a kobo
I have have the pdf, so don't know
They are drm free I read them on a kobo too
Hello! I want to try VSCode with Calva. how much does it cost? Or is it free to use?
Oh nice 😍🍻
Woohoo!!! I am very glad you did this
All that said, of course both Brandon and I appreciate support to be able to convince our significant others about the sensibility of our priorities. 😃 https://calva.io/sponsors/
Throwback Friday Video Time (the least alliterative ever) https://clojureverse.org/t/clojured-presentation-calva-says-welcome-to-clojure/7778