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Learning to program is getting harder

allendowney.blogspot.com

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Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#341

Post by mamon »

saagarjha wrote: post #279

> Computer retailers stopped installing development environments by default. As a result, anyone learning to program has to start by installing an SDE -- and that's a bigger barrier than you might expect. Many users have never installed anything, don't know how to, or might not be allowed to. Installing software is easier now than it used to be, but it is still error prone and can be frustrating. If someone just want…

By leaving MS Windows out of the equation you've just ignored 90% of computer sales worldwide...

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#342

Post by zo1 »

userbinator wrote: post #156
socialist_coder wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, what I've seen is that older programmers, in addition to being programmers, also have the skills of a computer helpdesk technician. They can debug Windows problems, hardware problems, know how to mess with the BIOS, and have no problem installing or configuring any piece of software. This helps immensely when setting up your IDE or debugging weird problems with compiling. Younger programmers seem to comm…

I agree completely --- being one of the "older programmers" --- and think it could be phrased thus: a new generation of "coders" is being forced to learn how to write instructions for the machine, when they are barely computer-literate. Having taught some introductory CS courses a few years ago, the amount of struggling with basic things like file naming, directory hierarchies, and even simple hardware use was a cons…

We recently got a junior-dev straight out of finishing his CS degree. And he didn't know you could "extend" your desktop and show different things on each side by plugging in a monitor. When quizzed, he told me he's "always just had a laptop", and never a monitor next to it I assume. He was then equally perplexed by the resolution and corresponding font-size change that occurred on the monitor because it could now run its own native resolution rather than what the laptop screen was forcing it to mirror.

It was quite eye-opening to see that.

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#343

Post by thaumasiotes »

marcv81 wrote: post #281
thaumasiotes wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The famous question is "why are manhole covers round?" Manholes being artificial, this leaves some room for speculation about why the shape was chosen. "Why is a pothole round?" is a more objective question.

Most manholes are round because that is the most practical shape such that the cover cannot fall in. There are actually other shapes, but they are usually hinged and most costly.

https://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/2008/08/why-are-manhole-cove...

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#344

Post by zo1 »

marcv81 wrote: post #281
thaumasiotes wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The famous question is "why are manhole covers round?" Manholes being artificial, this leaves some room for speculation about why the shape was chosen. "Why is a pothole round?" is a more objective question.

Most manholes are round because that is the most practical shape such that the cover cannot fall in. There are actually other shapes, but they are usually hinged and most costly.

I've never thought about it, but a circle of the correct size has no less reason to not fall in than say a square or triangle of the appropriate size. I.e. if it's smaller than the hole, it'll most likely fall in.

My theory: They're heavy, so making it a circle at least eliminates the need to "align" it when putting it back. You can basically just drag it using a hook and it'll slot itself into place.

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#345

Post by thaumasiotes »

mrexroad wrote: post #269
thaumasiotes wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The famous question is "why are manhole covers round?" Manholes being artificial, this leaves some room for speculation about why the shape was chosen. "Why is a pothole round?" is a more objective question.

Sorry, confused here on why the pothole variant is more objective? If anything, the manhole cover one seems pretty clear cut?

Potholes are naturally occurring. For any particular pothole, there is a reason it took whatever shape it did.

The only real constraint operating on manholes is that they fit the opening. Unless you can produce a design document specifying the requirements for the manhole you're looking at, there isn't really a "why".

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#346

Post by rocqua »

kuerbel wrote: post #277
rocqua wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree on physics, less on Calc. However, the explanation behind such a program is probably the distinction between vocational training and academic training. At least, here in the Netherlands, academic CS taught in academic institutions lies on the theoretical side. In such an academic CS program there are some practical courses. Stuff on databases, networking and computer architecture. But those are high level, an…

In Germany we have two different kinds of universities, the normal ones and the universities of applied sciences. After spending two semesters at a university (with fairly good grades) I switched to the uni of applied sciences. It was far too theoretical, and I'm not talking about the algorithms and data structures kind of theoretical. More like prove that a nondeterministic fa is not "mightier" / able to compute mor…

We should have something like that in the Netherlands. We do have 'university' and 'technical university' but I just looked at the curriculum for CS at a technical university and it is similarly theoretical. You really need to go to HBO (höhere Berufsbildung, Higher Professional Education) to get that practical approach.

This is sadly considered as plain easier than university. It probably is as well, but that leaves a gap for professional training at a higher level. It sounds like the 'Technische universitat' in Germany nicely fills that gap, or is that still considered as easier than normal university?

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#347

Post by mjlee »

zo1 wrote: post #344
marcv81 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most manholes are round because that is the most practical shape such that the cover cannot fall in. There are actually other shapes, but they are usually hinged and most costly.

I've never thought about it, but a circle of the correct size has no less reason to not fall in than say a square or triangle of the appropriate size. I.e. if it's smaller than the hole, it'll most likely fall in. My theory: They're heavy, so making it a circle at least eliminates the need to "align" it when putting it back. You can basically just drag it using a hook and it'll slot itself into place.

But manhole covers are always bigger than the hole. Otherwise, they'd fall in at installation and the problem would be immediately obvious.

The point here is more that a circle has the same diameter regardless of orientation. There's no way to rotate it to make it fit through a hole it couldn't before, like you can do with a rectangle.

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#348

Post by conradk »

8note wrote: post #314
conradk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't using a web IDE, but the dev server was remote. While I suppose remote environments do not have to be a huge pain, I'd be interested to know how to mitigate all of the issues I mentioned in my previous comment. The only solution I've been able to setup is a local environment with minimal set of dependencies calling the network.

most of the time, I don't really need to compile/run the code/tests to know I'm on the right track/it'll work well this minor cleanup. Then, once every few days I can pull out the remote box/IDE and clean up whatever bits of syntax/imports/typos I got wrong or forgot about.

Coding without any kind of test and getting it right sounds incredibly difficult to me. How do you achieve that ? What kind of code do you work on ?

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#349

Post by bazfoo »

rorykoehler wrote: post #289
socialist_coder wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, what I've seen is that older programmers, in addition to being programmers, also have the skills of a computer helpdesk technician. They can debug Windows problems, hardware problems, know how to mess with the BIOS, and have no problem installing or configuring any piece of software. This helps immensely when setting up your IDE or debugging weird problems with compiling. Younger programmers seem to comm…

Another anecdote... My experience with older programmers and sys admins is that the vast majority of them know a lot about how a computer works (as you mentioned) but many also haven't kept up to date on tools available to simplify and automate processes. This leads to unnecessarily convoluted and confusing configurations that are far from optimised considering todays available tooling. This frustrates me to no end a…

On the flipside, I see a lot of tools pushed that are more complicated, less flexible, and far buggier than the old tools. And then inevitably in a few years they're deprecated in favour of something newer and shinier and the old tools are still perfectly fine (e.g. Make).

Re: Learning to program is getting harder

#350

Post by conradk »

smt88 wrote: post #209
conradk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't using a web IDE, but the dev server was remote. While I suppose remote environments do not have to be a huge pain, I'd be interested to know how to mitigate all of the issues I mentioned in my previous comment. The only solution I've been able to setup is a local environment with minimal set of dependencies calling the network.

I can't think of a reason a dev server should be remote instead of on your machine, unless you're working with large, live data sets that you can't download... Can you explain the setup a bit more?

Well, with web IDEs, the server is remote, isn't it ? The reason here was the same: easy to setup environment because every dev had the same server image, with same config, etc. I guess that's what remote IDEs have going for them. I think Koding.com markets this very very well.
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