131–140 of 194 posts
I came across CS unplugged a while ago. Looks like it might be useful http://csunplugged.org/
Learning to code without a computer is what we all did, 40 years ago! He may write programs on paper, and send them to you to type them in, compile them, and print out a listing with the errors. You then send back the listing, and he will correct his program and repeat. He'll become a great programmer, since he will have to be extra careful to avoid losing one week on some typo. Now, it's been a few years since gcc h…
Learning to code without a computer is what we all did, 40 years ago! He may write programs on paper, and send them to you to type them in, compile them, and print out a listing with the errors. You then send back the listing, and he will correct his program and repeat. He'll become a great programmer, since he will have to be extra careful to avoid losing one week on some typo. Now, it's been a few years since gcc h…
Most (all?) CS students learn this early on in university anyways, so it's natural to study if your friend is interested in computer science.
He can also spend the time to master math, especially linear algebra. Getting a firm understanding on math never hurt any budding programmers and opens a ton of doors.
* Once released, he can play with different DSs and experience their asymptotic performances for himself.
Also, you should give him realistic expectations. Learning to code isn't the panacea that many think it is. There are many broke but talented programmers out there, and most don't have the extra baggage associated with a felony conviction. If he doesn't truly have a passion to create software, and is just looking for a way to make money, there are more efficient things he can learn about - like the psychology behind viral marketing (The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell and Purple Cow by Seth Godin might be good for example). I know someone that couldn't write a line of code to save his life, but makes 6 figures per month creating Facebook pages around ridiculous topics and using them to drive traffic to affiliate offers and his own Adsense pages. Your friend can always hire coders when needed if creating software isn't what he actually wants to do.
Learning to code without a computer is what we all did, 40 years ago! He may write programs on paper, and send them to you to type them in, compile them, and print out a listing with the errors. You then send back the listing, and he will correct his program and repeat. He'll become a great programmer, since he will have to be extra careful to avoid losing one week on some typo. Now, it's been a few years since gcc h…
> Another idea: some progress has been made on optical character recognition, so if he can write well enough, it may be possible that you may be able to scan his written programs, and convert them to source file easily, without having to transcribe them. So the process could be smooth enough. I was going to ask if he has access to a smartphone to take and send photos of paper? Set up a server for it. Hell turn it int…
Learning to code without a computer is what we all did, 40 years ago! He may write programs on paper, and send them to you to type them in, compile them, and print out a listing with the errors. You then send back the listing, and he will correct his program and repeat. He'll become a great programmer, since he will have to be extra careful to avoid losing one week on some typo. Now, it's been a few years since gcc h…
>> He may write programs on paper, and send them to you to type them in, compile them, and print out a listing with the errors. You then send back the listing, and he will correct his program and repeat. The guy could 'run' his hand written programs on his own.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Another idea: some progress has been made on optical character recognition, so if he can write well enough, it may be possible that you may be able to scan his written programs, and convert them to source file easily, without having to transcribe them. So the process could be smooth enough. I was going to ask if he has access to a smartphone to take and send photos of paper? Set up a server for it. Hell turn it int…
If he has access to a smartphone, there are some coding environments that run on the phone. No need to run the code in such a roundabout manner.
Depends on where he is incarcerated there may be options available and if not he should find ways to bring them to the prison. 1) Edovo is a tablet learning solution that is in many jails ( https://edovo.com/ ) 2) Another group The Last Mile, while they got their start in San Quentin, is working to bring their program/model to more prisons. https://thelastmile.org/ Regardless, I would encourage reaching out to either…
The Last Mile is now up and running in 4 California state prisons. Folsom Women's Facility, Ironwood State Prison, Chuckawalla State Prison, and of course San Quentin. We're going to be expanding into a few more in 2017. You can see some of the details of how we setup the classroom here: https://github.com/thelastmile/intranet