CP4E was Re: Deitel and Deitel Book...

[Roman Suzi]

On Thu, 7 Mar 2002, Simon Brunning wrote:

> > From:	Geoff Gerrietts [SMTP:geoff at gerrietts.net]
> > 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.

Are you sure? My daughter makes herself understood by all available
means. She built her own dictionary which we, parents, learned.
What is interesting, she uses (internally) a hash table to
convert from our language to her almost instantly...

Our observations tell us that children differ in their ways. E.g. some of
them unthinkingly repeat lots of words and even sentences, while our child
uses only what she understands. Some others do not talk at all and
then at once speak clearly in sentences.

I guess, adults can also be categorized by their approach in learning
languages. And trial-and-error is, IMHO, also needed to learn computer
languages. I can't imaging someone writing right from the start
after studying docs and specs.

I do not remember who told me this, but it seems that students
better learn from poorly constructed lectures than perfect ones.
Because, they need to be _active_ in constructing their own system
rather than _passively_ "eat" readymaid knowledge frames.

So, a bad book (with errors, inconsistencies, etc) is not necessary bad
for learning purposes (if it covers enough of a subject).

> So I don't think that computer languages can be learned in the same way as
> natural languages. Children learn language by a combination of instinct and
> trial-and-error. We don't *have* a computer language instinct - only Guido
> has one of those - and trial-and-error will just mean
> trial-and-syntax-error.

IMHO, children do not only learn language, they also build their
interpreter for themselves as nobody provide them with the
source, only flying in the air binaries ;-)

Sincerely yours, Roman A.Suzi
-- 
 - Petrozavodsk - Karelia - Russia - mailto:rnd at onego.ru -