Christina George, hello! and welcome.

WR, idly, I wonder whether this intro to programming
but-not-for-programmers course might be taught by an underqualified or
overworked adjunct or grad student slave, or if not, whether instead by a
bored research professor. It doesn't sound like fun. Sympathy.

Greetings to all 2292 recipients.

--
Al Matthews

Software Developer, Digital Services Unit
Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library
email: [log in to unmask]; office: 1 404 978 2057





On 2/27/13 11:11 AM, "George, Christina Rose" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>I think Wilhelmina has touched on an very important point that, for some,
>in order to learn--or want to learn--something, the material has to be
>relevant to them. Some folks can get through the boring, "calculators can
>do this" parts of because they anticipate the long-term benefit while
>others learn more effectively if the material helps them achieve a goal
>they already have or a goal that is within their area of expertise or
>interest.
>
>Christina George
>(Hi! I'm new to this listserv)
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>Wilhelmina Randtke
>Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 8:47 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] back to minorities question, seeking guidance
>
>"Probably it was the wrong course. I think coding should start with
>building web pages. A calculator can't do that."
>
>HTML is called "markup language", but does anyone here really think it's
>a programming language? Even though is gets more complicated over time,
>it pretty much doesn't have variables or do interactive things, and is
>for displaying things, not manipulating things.
>
>My point about math and programming is that the curriculum for the
>average intro programming class appears to have been developed circa 1972
>and never tweaked.  I'm in Programming for Engineers right now, which is
>the prerequisite for the classes that looked useful.  So far we have
>written lots of small programs to add numbers, find modulos, make a
>simple loop.
>All this would have been exciting before calculators.  But, yeah, we have
>calculators now.  And, actually, we had calculators before we had
>widespread access to affordable computers.  Writing a page long program
>to add some numbers makes no sense.  It's probably the least efficient
>way to solve the problem.  Nothing about the coursework shows computers
>as useful at solving problems.  Everything about the coursework shows
>computers as clunky inefficient, difficult to use calculators.  And...
>here is something we haven't done...  We have not yet called a function
>from inside a function.  So, the whole object oriented thing has not yet
>appeared, and it's past midterm time.
>
>From having looked at a bunch of syllabi online for different intro level
>programming classes, I think my experiences are the norm.  The intro
>classes cover things you can do more easily without coding.
>
>This type of curriculum is off putting to at least some people.  It also
>isn't necessary.  I think it's possible to design a curriculum where
>students could have something to show that would be worthwhile now, as
>opposed to worthwhile in 1972 when adding many numbers at once was a big
>deal.
>
>-Wilhelmina Randtke
>
>
>On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 1:57 AM, Thomas Krichel <[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>>   Wilhelmina Randtke writes
>>
>> > Pretty much the whole entire entry level programming class for the
>> average
>> > class covers using code to do things that you can do much more
>> > easily without code.
>>
>>   Probably it was the wrong course. I think coding should start with
>>   building web pages. A calculator can't do that.
>>
>>   Cheers,
>>
>>   Thomas Krichel                    http://openlib.org/home/krichel
>>                                       http://authorprofile.org/pkr1
>>                                                skype: thomaskrichel
>>


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