CP4E was Re: Deitel and Deitel Book...

[Jeff Hinrichs]

"Geoff Gerrietts" <geoff at gerrietts.net> wrote in message
news:mailman.1015439904.7322.python-list at python.org...
> Quoting Ramkumar Kashyap (rkashyap at sympatico.ca):
> > This is extremely non-intuitive to most people.  Most 5,6,7 year olds
> > can speak fluently in their native languages, but how many of them could
> > tell you about vowels, consonants, nouns, verbs, adjectives.  In fact
> > quite a few of them speak multiple languages, can easily differentiate
> > sentence structures in those languages, but would be hard-pressed to
> > give defintions of the above.
> >
> > So how come in programming, we ALWAYS jump into the constructs of a
> > language, rather than just doing, gaining proficiency and then
> > understanding how it is put together?
>
> I think the analogy here is interesting and useful, and bears
> consideration. I think that what you're asking for -- a reexamination
> of the pedagogy surrounding computer programming -- is useful.
>
> I would hesitate to suggest that your methodology is exactly
> appropriate, though. Here's why:
>
> - Go speak to a five or six year old child for a few hours. Engage
>   them in any conversation you like, but make them talk, make them use
>   the language for an expressive purpose. Their facility with the
>   language is reasonable at this age, but far from mastery. Only the
>   mentally disabled standardize at this level; even the stupid
>   standardize at grade 5 or older.
>
> - Observe a two or three year old. Engage this child in conversation.
>   It won't last long, but try it.
>
> For the space of around three years, a child is immersed almost
> constantly, from waking to sleep, and even sometimes while asleep, in
> language. For those first three years, the child is almost completely
> incapable of making him or herself understood.
*BUZZ* Sorry, but as a parent I can firmly say that children can make a
point well before 3 years. In fact, by 12-16 months they have the ability to
utter rudimentary words, associate action and reaction and are deeply
focused on interpersonal relationships, among other things.  First words are
normally, familial (i.e mom/dad/et al), then "NO," then "More" with a slew
of words of interest to them come next.

> Some of this is the challenge of spoken language, the challenge of
> making your voice modulate to form the right sounds. Much research
> exists to show how young children can learn to sign long before they
> can learn to speak; if you eliminate the difficulty of speaking, you
> might get it down to age 2 or so. That's still 2 years in which the
> child can barely be understood if at all, and another three before the
> most basic constructs are reliably produced.
>
> People don't get smarter as they get older, they just have a better
> foundation for building on. It would be just as difficult for someone
> to learn programming through reading or transcribing lots of text as
> it would be for someone to learn French by riding the Metro all day
> long.
This depends on how you define "smart."  I refer to smart as the mixture of
wisdom + experience + ability to intuit.  <wink>

> People don't get "smarter" as they get older, though they do develop
> strategies for learning that enable them to learn things more quickly.
> Most of those strategies revolve around identifying patterns early,
> and spending most of the learning time exploring the "borderline
> behavior" that describes the limits of the pattern.
>
> That's why we go into constructs early, because those are the
> patterns. The next step for the educated learner is to explore the
> limits of these patterns -- what they can and can't do. This is where
> a great deal of practice can be immensely useful.
>
> A heavily practice-based pedagogy could be a very good thing,
> especially if the practical applications were designed to explore
> recently-introduced concepts to show when the pattern applies, and
> when it does not.
>
> My belief is that most people find computer programming to be
> difficult because logic is not the natural way people think; it is a
> forced mode. People tend to think intuitively, using "gut feelings"
> and good guesswork. That's the way we tend to summarize the knowledge
> of our experiences: as gut feelings.
I agree with you here.

> Expressing things in a purely logical fashion is consequently
> difficult for people, and very few ever receive formal training in
> logic. What's worse is that trying to teach logic at the fundamental
> level doesn't immediately apply. Logic itself is a tool that a person
> must learn to use, and could easily fill several courses by itself.
>
> --
> Geoff Gerrietts             "Punctuality is the virtue of the bored."
> <geoff at gerrietts net>                               --Evelyn Waugh

I do believe that Ramkumar's point is valid.  <my $0.02>Children, especially
the young, suffer from fewer of the social pressures that retard adult
learning.  The most salient, is the disregard for being wrong.  Adults, I
believe, hamper their own learning process by limiting their questions or
not asking them if they feel that by exposing their "knowledge holes" they
are negatively impacting the social surroundings.  (i.e. Don't want to look
stupid in front of the class.)  Unfortunately, the fastest way to learn
something new is to expose your limited knowledge to the
teacher/instructor/peers so that they can more effectively rid you of
misconceptions and fill-in those "knowledge holes."  I have a strong
suspicion this is why adults have a relatively more difficult time learning
new spoken languages than children do. (vocabulary that is, pronunciation is
another issue) </my $0.02>