[Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming

[Arthur]

Arthur wrote:

>The analysis/understanding of dense working code is to me the starting 
>point.  Understanding something of the language anatomy is a byproduct 
>of that effort, not the focus of it.
>
>I feel strongly that this top->down approach to learning in relationship 
>to programming, rather than an atomic bottom->up approach approach, is 
>not generally given its do.
>  
>
To state the somewhat obvious -

I have been at this general game now for some time, so that I am not 
suggesting that something like the VPython code is a reasonable place to 
start for someone who has not been.

I am suggesting that readability has been a focus of the Python language 
from its inception, and that fact makes this general approach more 
realistic at an early stage of the game than it would otherwise be.

And that teaching methodologies that do not take advantage of this fact 
- by staying too atomic  -  are perhaps not taking as much advantage of 
what Python has to offer at the introductory level then it might.

In learning C++ I am spending 98% of my time reading, 2% writing. 

Much the same was true of learning Python at an early stage, at a stage 
where reading C++ at all was well out of my reach.

I am now simply a more sophisticated reader.  But reading remains at the 
core of my learning experience.

Art