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#clojurebridge
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2016-03-20
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mchampine00:03:22

ClojureBridge Boston (March 18, 19) finished few hours ago. Very successful.

meow10:03:47

@mchampine: In what ways was it successful?

mchampine15:03:24

Everyone got a Clojure dev environment installed: Success #1! The curriculum seemed to work too. We created and used a new curriculum fork with Nightcode as the IDE. Good student/mentor ratio (under 3 :1). Those new to programming made impressive progress working through the tutorials with their mentor's help, and mini instruction sessions explained concepts like "map" which were readily absorbed and used. Great "women in technology" panel session. Warm social atmosphere with lots of positive interactions throughout. We left with a good feeling, including the mentors. There's only so much you can do in 1 day. We said our goal was to give everyone a "taste" of programming in Clojure. They got that, and the taste was mostly appealing. Btw, in many ways the "new to programming" group had it easier. They didn't have that first jarring step of "unlearning" the imperative approach to problem solving.

bridget16:03:57

My experience has been exactly the same with the new to programming vs programmers in the 3 workshops that I have been a TA at, mchampine

bridget16:03:14

And congrats on a successful workshop!

bridget16:03:20

If someone gets some time to do so, the ClojureBridge Workshops google group really benefits from organizer reports

mchampine17:03:07

Thanks Bridget - we'll get together a post-event summary and share it on that google group. We're already working on a "lessons learned" and a followup email to attendees (with links to Clojure learning resources and community/communication links)