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Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

futurecoder.io

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Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#81

Post by BrandoElFollito »

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #80
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My children were vaguely interested in programming but one thing they got of it was that learning functions in Python helped them enormously with formal functions in math. This is one of the things I regret with how math is taught in France: it stresses way too much the formal part and this is terrifying for children (and teens and everyone except mathematicians). We have a religious reverence to maths in France. It…

This. Mathetmatical functions never reqlly clicked until after I started learning coding. It helps that the approach I've used is very functional-type programming

The other advantage is that in programing you introduce functions with some hand-waving and "black boxes".

I told my children this is something you put data in , it does some magic, and your get some data out. I started with some built-in functions (or functions I wrote and hide) so that they understand the mechanics.

Then they finally asked "can I do my own function?" and, bam, there we were :)

Removing the ceremonial of mathematical correctness helped a lot.

This is also the reason I am sad we do not give children half- (or 3/4-) lies: we tell them something more or less correct so that they can play with it (making sure they do not stumble upon edge cases) and then refine their knowledge.

This is what my math prof on my 3rd year of physics did: he said "I will give you a neat trick I will not explain because it will be super useful to you now. Next year, when you understand it, it won't be of any practical use anymore". I was not traumatized.

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#82

Post by zinclozenge »

alexmojaki wrote: post #78
zinclozenge wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, here's a very rough PoC that I plan on integrating with a bigger project at some point https://glittering-narwhal-96bc3e.netlify.app/

Thanks. I tried running code but couldn't see any results/output. I was hoping to see `input()` in action. The dev console just logs `{type: 'error', data: '{}', contentType: 'text/json'}`

Haha yes I think I removed the output component when doing some testing and inputs was something I considered but eventually decided against it. My goal is to provide an app to allow users to "grind" leetcode/tech interview questions with spaced repetition, and I decided that instead of taking on the extra complexity of user inputs, it'd be better to focus on the value proposition of the app.

But this is just codemirror + pyodide, I'm still building the rest of it.

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#83

Post by fmx »

alexmojaki wrote: post #66
fmx wrote: post #64

Looks great, and I love that it requires no account - you can jump right in! One minor annoyance for me was that the animation for a correct answer - the exploding confetti - was a bit over the top. Like "OK, yeah, chill out, all I did was get the answer right to an easy question". I just find it too much to see that every time, but maybe that's just me.

Thank you, it's really great to hear that you've gone through several pages already and didn't find any problems more significant than this :)

Indeed, it is only a minor annoyance! But speaking of going through several pages, it would be nice to have a kind of "table of contents" for those who do already know the basics and want to skip ahead.

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#84

Post by alexmojaki »

fmx wrote: post #83
alexmojaki wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, it's really great to hear that you've gone through several pages already and didn't find any problems more significant than this :)

Indeed, it is only a minor annoyance! But speaking of going through several pages, it would be nice to have a kind of "table of contents" for those who do already know the basics and want to skip ahead.

There is a link to the Table of Contents (https://futurecoder.io/course/#toc) in the bar at the top. Is it not easy to notice?

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#85

Post by earthnail »

alexmojaki wrote: post #32
angryasian wrote: post #25

The only downside is theres multiple ways to reach the same outcome, and unless you program it exactly what you're looking for it gives a false negative that the solution isn't correct

That's not really true. For the actual exercises where you need to solve a problem yourself, the system only tests that the code produces the correct output. It doesn't require you to use a specific approach, so there are infinite possibilities, although it may forbid certain approaches that go against what the current section is trying to teach. There are many steps that do require entering exact code, but that's be…

I ran into one instance just now where this problem happened:

In the first tutorial, at some point you have

> word = ‘Hello’

> your_name = ‘Somename’

> word + your_name

‘HelloSomename’

Now the course asks me to fix it so it says ‘Hello Somename’. My first approach was to enter

> word = ‘Hello ‘

This fixed it, but the course wasn’t happy. Instead I needed to type word + ‘ ‘ + your_name.

Previously in the course, the course stated that all following three solutions were correct for introducing the space:

‘Hello ‘ + ‘World

‘Hello’ + ‘ World’

‘Hello’ + ‘ ‘ + ‘World’

Because of that feedback, I thought it was confusing that one had to use the third solution in that later part of the course.

Hope that feedback helps. Otherwise, I think this is course absolutely fantastic! Congratulations on creating something so special!

Edit: excuse the weird ticks; I’m writing this comment on an iPad

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