Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
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Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#2Fantastic! Good steps towards "artificial wisdom". Define wisdom-- skill in a craft (here: knowing how to think). Using ML to identify "wise" programming mindsets. Then (presumably) developing educational programs which teach these.
“Educational data mining should not be used to reinforce the existing ineffective forms of assessment, but to reimagine it completely,” Blikstein said. “Pre- and post-assessment is a black-box. We do not know much about what is happening in between.
“Ultimately, this work may help us better understand some forms of human cognition because you can see what people are doing and how they are thinking in real time.”
Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#3What was interesting is that the higher-performing group (Alpha) was stuck less often that the lower-performing group (Gamma). Is this the next programming motto after "Don't Repeat Yourself"?
Don't Get Stuck!
Now how does one avoid getting stuck while programming? I still get stuck a lot, but these really helped:
- Test what you write as quickly as you can.
- Hold it in your head! Or you won't have a clue what all your code, together, is doing.
- To get started, ask yourself, what is the simplest thing that could possibly work?
Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#4Begs the question: "Is there a 'right' way to think about programming problems?"
My knee-jerk reaction would be "No! Everyone learns and thinks differently"-- but being able to put programming styles into buckets and correlate final grades from it suggests otherwise, doesn't it?
Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#5What was interesting is that the higher-performing group (Alpha) was stuck less often that the lower-performing group (Gamma). Is this the next programming motto after "Don't Repeat Yourself"? Don't Get Stuck! Now how does one avoid getting stuck while programming? I still get stuck a lot, but these really helped: - Test what you write as quickly as you can. - Hold it in your head! Or you won't have a clue what all y…
> - To get started, ask yourself, what is the simplest thing that could possibly work?
I'm not sure I would go for what appear to be the simplest now ; I try to find the implementation which will have the simplest design to use/modify/delete in the future.
Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#6What was interesting is that the higher-performing group (Alpha) was stuck less often that the lower-performing group (Gamma). Is this the next programming motto after "Don't Repeat Yourself"? Don't Get Stuck! Now how does one avoid getting stuck while programming? I still get stuck a lot, but these really helped: - Test what you write as quickly as you can. - Hold it in your head! Or you won't have a clue what all y…
Overcoming getting stuck is the difference between a highly productive dev and the average dev. This is especially the case if the problem being worked on is hard. I am a very average dev in regards coding skills, but due to my background I have learned strategies to “unstick” myself after ending up in the middle of a massive mud pit. This has allowed me to solve problems better devs have not been able to accomplish.
Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#7From the actual article (and not the news article): "The results show that students’ change in programming patterns is only weakly predictive of course performance"
Not as "juicy" as the website - but then again, it's the actual results :)
Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#8What was interesting is that the higher-performing group (Alpha) was stuck less often that the lower-performing group (Gamma). Is this the next programming motto after "Don't Repeat Yourself"? Don't Get Stuck! Now how does one avoid getting stuck while programming? I still get stuck a lot, but these really helped: - Test what you write as quickly as you can. - Hold it in your head! Or you won't have a clue what all y…
> What was interesting is that the higher-performing group (Alpha) was stuck less often that the lower-performing group (Gamma).
Which may just be correlated with high performance, not necessarily the cause.
If you make "don't get stuck" a motto, you can easily imagine people skipping over difficult problems and not thinking about a good solution.
Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#9What was interesting is that the higher-performing group (Alpha) was stuck less often that the lower-performing group (Gamma). Is this the next programming motto after "Don't Repeat Yourself"? Don't Get Stuck! Now how does one avoid getting stuck while programming? I still get stuck a lot, but these really helped: - Test what you write as quickly as you can. - Hold it in your head! Or you won't have a clue what all y…
Each of your three bullet points has a related developer concept:
* Test early, test often test automatically [0]
* Remember the big picture [0]
* The minimum viable product [1]
[0] - https://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic-programmer/extracts/tips
[1] - http://practicetrumpstheory.com/minimum-viable-product/Re: Stanford study shows success of different programming styles in CS class
#10What was interesting is that the higher-performing group (Alpha) was stuck less often that the lower-performing group (Gamma). Is this the next programming motto after "Don't Repeat Yourself"? Don't Get Stuck! Now how does one avoid getting stuck while programming? I still get stuck a lot, but these really helped: - Test what you write as quickly as you can. - Hold it in your head! Or you won't have a clue what all y…
I'd offer two bits of marketable wisdom from this.
- think back. Students who change style do better. This implies that those students are reflecting on their own style and trying out techniques (performing experiments) to find out what works best for them.
- think ahead. Use lookahead to avoid backtracking. Some amount of top-down planning will make your life easier and avoid traps, even if your natural style is bottom-up.