Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats • Hacker News Board

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#111

Post by city41 » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 4:31 AM UTC

steve8918 wrote: post #109

cletus wrote: post #13

I see this largely as a failure of education. You see this issue in many areas and much earlier on like teaching mathematics. In schools there tends to be one method used and that method doesn't suit everybody. I see this at work. I've known programmers who, when they get a new hire, will basically let them flounder. I guess the basic idea is that if you're "good" you'll "figure it out" (with minimal time investment…

I completely disagree. I firmly believe that either you are born with the ability to be a programmer or you're not. That's not saying that it's good or bad, but I believe a lot of it is just how your brain is configured. It's as innate as the ability to shoot baskets, or throw a football, or as innate as gaining energy when interacting with people (extrovert) vs losing energy when interacting with people (introvert).…

In my experience, the people who "get" programming took it up as a kid. If your first program was written in CS 101, then you will not be a good programmer. I've yet to meet anyone who bucks this trend.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#112

Post by flaviusb » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 4:36 AM UTC

hobin wrote: post #81

gioele wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> primary math education (i.e. young children) isn't personalized very much. This is demonstrably true, at least in the U.S. I would say that it is demonstrably not true in many EU countries. Maybe "non personalisation" is the tendency of lazy teachers, but I remember pretty well how my math teachers repeated the same subject thrice: the first time describing its core in an abstract way, the second time with concrete…

Which country do you live in? I don't know about the quality of schools in general here (the Netherlands), but I've met too many people who say they "can't do math" to think very highly of our elementary educational system. Granted, though, this may have more to do with the fact that it's generally acceptable to 'just not able to do math'. (This is not to say that I think everyone can do math equally well, but I've s…

I think of it like Sturgeon's Law applied to humans. Most humans just are not very good at most stuff.

Look at the percentage of programmers that are basically not any good at programming all and yet are able to continue being called programmers; if we apply standards of expectation uniformly, then you would expect to see even people in technical fields be able to be useless at math and have everyone basically just shrug and accept it.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#113

Post by dodedo » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 4:38 AM UTC

Jach wrote: post #86

paganel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Experiments going back to the 1980s with teaching children how to program using Lego blocks and robots with Logo seem to indicate that nearly everyone can learn how to program, but possibly not when they’re 18 or 19 and possibly not with the kind of academic environment represented by the test. I only learned how to program at around age 20 or 21, but at that point I had already been a CS student for 2 years, and o…

I think Python's a great language to start with, maybe. What turned me on to PHP and web programming is that I could do things easily and get visual results back. Flask is a better way to build server side apps than raw PHP, but it hides a lot and a significant part of the Python language needs to be understood to understand a lot of it. I spent a year learning about website design shortly after turning 14 and during…

'My CS teacher also resolved many difficulties with the = sign by always reading code like "a = b" as "a gets b"'

This is one of the great things about Pascal. The := sign is used for assignment, and the equals sign alone is used for equality. It's very natural to call := 'gets' and keep a clear distinction between assertions and assignments.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#114

Post by smallblacksun » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 4:43 AM UTC

angrycoder wrote: post #110

steve8918 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. I firmly believe that either you are born with the ability to be a programmer or you're not. That's not saying that it's good or bad, but I believe a lot of it is just how your brain is configured. It's as innate as the ability to shoot baskets, or throw a football, or as innate as gaining energy when interacting with people (extrovert) vs losing energy when interacting with people (introvert).…

Comments like this really undermine what it means when someone is good at something, be it coding, throwing a ball, writing, what have you. It is not a matter of being born with it. It isn't a matter of being smart. It is all fucking work. It is never being satisfied. Its trying so hard and getting so pissed off that you throw the ball in the dumpster, that you smash your fist into the keyboard and walk away, that yo…

>So it isn't pixie dust, it isn't innate ability, it isn't being smart. It is all fucking work.

No, it isn't. I knew a girl in high school who worked far harder than I ever did, and had far worse grades (particularly in math and science). She literally spent 2-3 hours every day doing homework and studying, while I spent 15-30 minutes. If you talked to her, she seemed perfectly normal, she just had tremendous difficulty with academic work. While hard work is important, natural gifts make a huge difference.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#115

Post by steve8918 » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 4:57 AM UTC

angrycoder wrote: post #110

steve8918 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. I firmly believe that either you are born with the ability to be a programmer or you're not. That's not saying that it's good or bad, but I believe a lot of it is just how your brain is configured. It's as innate as the ability to shoot baskets, or throw a football, or as innate as gaining energy when interacting with people (extrovert) vs losing energy when interacting with people (introvert).…

Comments like this really undermine what it means when someone is good at something, be it coding, throwing a ball, writing, what have you. It is not a matter of being born with it. It isn't a matter of being smart. It is all fucking work. It is never being satisfied. Its trying so hard and getting so pissed off that you throw the ball in the dumpster, that you smash your fist into the keyboard and walk away, that yo…

Just because programming for YOU comes naturally doesn't mean it does for others.

You obviously didn't read what I wrote. The point is that people can always learn to be adequate programmers. But if the experience of programming is so different from the way they process information, that the act of programming is mentally uncomfortable for them, then they will never be great. The discomfort has NOTHING to do with hard work. It's like sales. You could spend your whole life being a decent salesperson but if you hate interacting with people you'll never be a great salesperson that closes multi-million dollar deals. It's as simple as that.

If you can't visualize a map, if your spatial abilities aren't strong, then having to interact daily where you need to do that would be frustrating as hell and you would hate it.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#116

Post by steve8918 » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 5:05 AM UTC

city41 wrote: post #111

steve8918 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. I firmly believe that either you are born with the ability to be a programmer or you're not. That's not saying that it's good or bad, but I believe a lot of it is just how your brain is configured. It's as innate as the ability to shoot baskets, or throw a football, or as innate as gaining energy when interacting with people (extrovert) vs losing energy when interacting with people (introvert).…

In my experience, the people who "get" programming took it up as a kid. If your first program was written in CS 101, then you will not be a good programmer. I've yet to meet anyone who bucks this trend.

I essentially taught myself how to program after graduating from college.

I took two computer-related courses throughout college because they were prerequisites, one being a CS101 using Pascal and another in my junior year doing assembly language on the 68000, which I did poorly in. I actually thought computers were dumb and was planning on going into electronics, but my senior project ended up being about assembly language programming on a DSP chip, and despite not knowing what I was doing, I actually enjoyed it. So that, coupled with the fact that programming jobs were easier to find than hardware, I spend 2-3 months after college teaching myself how to program, and I've been making my career out of it ever since.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#117

Post by neilparikh » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 5:28 AM UTC

malingo wrote: post #35

gatlin wrote: post #16

I studied to become a computer science teacher. I have not finished my certification for various reasons but I have some limited field work under my belt along with numerous discussions and readings. And, of course, my anecdotal but legitimate experience in public schooling. Let's get one thing straight: the problem is bad teachers. My mentor once said it kind of sucks that UTeach was only available to UT students an…

I think the CS Unplugged approach has a tremendous amount of potential, particularly with its intended audience (primary school). In my 3rd grade class in 1986, one day the teacher told us that she had a loaf of sliced bread in a bag, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jam, and a knife. She asked each student to write, on a sheet of paper, instructions for making a PBJ sandwich. When all the students had finished, the…

About the PBJ exercise, last semester (I'm in grade 10 right now), we had to do the same thing in Chemistry, except for a lab. It was teach us to provide detailed instructions in the lab write-ups. Almost no one in the class had detailed enough instructions. It worked like a charm. After that, on the rest of my labs, I went in a lot of detail in the instructions. I have to agree that it is a great way of teaching, and it would be amazing if every student encountered it at least once in their schooling. Especially at a younger age, it would instill an attention to detail in the student, which would serve him well for the rest of his life.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#118

Post by redschell » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 5:31 AM UTC

city41 wrote: post #111

steve8918 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. I firmly believe that either you are born with the ability to be a programmer or you're not. That's not saying that it's good or bad, but I believe a lot of it is just how your brain is configured. It's as innate as the ability to shoot baskets, or throw a football, or as innate as gaining energy when interacting with people (extrovert) vs losing energy when interacting with people (introvert).…

In my experience, the people who "get" programming took it up as a kid. If your first program was written in CS 101, then you will not be a good programmer. I've yet to meet anyone who bucks this trend.

Could you elaborate on why you would think this? Because it seems a bit hard to believe. I mean, the oldest students in your average CS 101 class will be, what, 22? Maybe older if they're non-traditional? The human brain's frontal lobe isn't even completely myelinated at 22. I'm not saying they have the same potential as someone who started at 10, but you make it seem like there's no hope for anyone who didn't start when they were 10.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#119

Post by araneae » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 5:39 AM UTC

steve8918 wrote: post #109

cletus wrote: post #13

I see this largely as a failure of education. You see this issue in many areas and much earlier on like teaching mathematics. In schools there tends to be one method used and that method doesn't suit everybody. I see this at work. I've known programmers who, when they get a new hire, will basically let them flounder. I guess the basic idea is that if you're "good" you'll "figure it out" (with minimal time investment…

I completely disagree. I firmly believe that either you are born with the ability to be a programmer or you're not. That's not saying that it's good or bad, but I believe a lot of it is just how your brain is configured. It's as innate as the ability to shoot baskets, or throw a football, or as innate as gaining energy when interacting with people (extrovert) vs losing energy when interacting with people (introvert).…

When I took cs 100 as a freshman in college, I had never programmed before. I was in the "bottom hump." I would have failed that little quiz if I took it my first semester.

Unlike every other discipline, programming is a completely different way of thinking from what we're exposed to in public schooling. It takes time for your brain to change the way it thinks.

It's not impossible to learn; I learned. It just took me more than one semester of being exposed to something for the very first time. The reason for the two humps are people who have been exposed to programming and those who have not; it's why it appears in intro classes but not in the later ones.

Re: Coding Horror: Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats

#120

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 28, 2012, 5:42 AM UTC

city41 wrote: post #111

steve8918 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. I firmly believe that either you are born with the ability to be a programmer or you're not. That's not saying that it's good or bad, but I believe a lot of it is just how your brain is configured. It's as innate as the ability to shoot baskets, or throw a football, or as innate as gaining energy when interacting with people (extrovert) vs losing energy when interacting with people (introvert).…

In my experience, the people who "get" programming took it up as a kid. If your first program was written in CS 101, then you will not be a good programmer. I've yet to meet anyone who bucks this trend.

[deleted]