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Version Control and Higher Education

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Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#21

Post by abraininavat »

Who are these CS students who need their hands held to such a degree? A simple, You should consider using version control for your projects. Try git or subversion. It will come in handy later in your career at the beginning of an introductory programming class should be all that's necessary. A CS curriculum doesn't teach students how to touch-type either, nor should it.

I'd suggest to people doing hiring that the candidates who haven't even heard of version control (which some other posters have mentioned interviewing) are ones that you don't want to hire. You should be glad to have the easy selection criterion.

Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#22

Post by kux »

jsiarto wrote: post #13
andrewflnr wrote: post #8

One way or another, I feel they should come out of college knowing something about version control, but not in the first class. I can easily believe greenyoda that trying to learn programming and, say, git at the same time would be a disaster. I'm tempted to say you should just warn them that at some point it's going to be part of their class workflow, but I don't think that would fly bureaucratically. At the same ti…

This is the case in the classes I teach. We use Git as the primary vehicle for submitting assignments and tracking work. I usually spend the first week introducing students to the Linux shell and interacting with Git and Github.

Why not assign something like http://try.github.io/levels/1/challenges/1 as homework instead?

Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#23

Post by jarofgreen »

klancaster wrote: post #15

One of the classes I teach is at the senior undergrad level, and they have been thrilled that I have them use version control. Many have commented that they wish that they had known about git in earlier classes, as it would have saved them when they screwed up their programs.

This comment is so good I quoted it with citation, hope you don't mind. http://jarofgreen.co.uk/2013/05/why-programmers-should-learn...

Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#24

Post by jarofgreen »

I blogged a response: http://jarofgreen.co.uk/2013/05/why-programmers-should-learn...

Basically, I think it's important to teach Git (or other Version Control) to students because what you are really teaching them is good development practices. These take time to learn and get used to and Uni's absolutely should be teaching them.

The whole issue of "students should be able to teach themselves git" is a bit of a red herring, IMHO.

Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#26

Post by jsiarto »

abraininavat wrote: post #21

Who are these CS students who need their hands held to such a degree? A simple, You should consider using version control for your projects. Try git or subversion. It will come in handy later in your career at the beginning of an introductory programming class should be all that's necessary. A CS curriculum doesn't teach students how to touch-type either, nor should it. I'd suggest to people doing hiring that the can…

I agree completely, but I also teach non-CS students mostly in design. If version control is a foreign concept to some CS students, it's not even on the radar of most of my design group.

Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#27

Post by kanzure »

andrewflnr wrote: post #12
angersock wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I had at least one project at school fail completely because we weren't using version control. Had the culture of the institution been "You will use a repo for this class, and you will learn to like it" this may have been averted (worse, I already knew and used repos for other things--I just derped with my partner on that project). I think that including these basic tools in an intro course (perhaps as a first or…

I'm pretty much failing to make sense of your last sentence. Is that "never" supposed to be there?

He means "by similar logic [to the post that I am replying to]". In other words, he is claiming that using the arguments from the post will lead to making that statement with the word "never". He himself probably doesn't believe "never".

Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#28

Post by angersock »

kanzure wrote: post #27
andrewflnr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty much failing to make sense of your last sentence. Is that "never" supposed to be there?

He means "by similar logic [to the post that I am replying to]". In other words, he is claiming that using the arguments from the post will lead to making that statement with the word "never". He himself probably doesn't believe "never".

This is the correct interpretation--looking back on it the wording is ambiguous.

Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#29

Post by andrewflnr »

kanzure wrote: post #27
andrewflnr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty much failing to make sense of your last sentence. Is that "never" supposed to be there?

He means "by similar logic [to the post that I am replying to]". In other words, he is claiming that using the arguments from the post will lead to making that statement with the word "never". He himself probably doesn't believe "never".

Ah, that makes sense.

Re: Version Control and Higher Education

#30

Post by snogglethorpe »

stevewilhelm wrote: post #19

The git log could be a gold mine for researchers studying how CS students learn CS concepts and programming techniques. It could also be used to detect cheating.

    commit d6abf62d1981a6c16029d10a5ecbe0c5c494322b
    Author: Biff Joe 
    Date:   Thu Mar 28 12:21:11 2013 +0000

    Change copyrights to my name (woo, dodged a bullet there!).

    commit 9c66001752f643e8f2a3453662352cf26402cee3
    Author: Biff Joe 
    Date:   Thu Mar 28 12:03:01 2013 +0000

    Change variable names.

    commit e9b9a740ca52e6fc2843d2d5aed2865c56ace45a
    Author: Biff Joe 
    Date:   Thu Mar 28 11:39:44 2013 +0000

    Import Nigel's code.
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