A Beginners Viewpoint (was:Myth)

[Laura Creighton]

> o maj [omarmaj at talk21.com] wrote:
> 
> > Python is ideal for the determined beginner, but is a poor choice
> > for an unmotivated person who wants to be spoon fed.
> 
> I'm not sure an "unmotivated person who wants to be spoon fed" is going
> to develop into a very effective programmer anyway. In my estimation,
> programming at any non-trivial level takes a fair amount of persistence
> and initiative.
> 
> Jimmy

Some bright people, who have always had excellent textbooks written for
their level of experience in the world at hand whenever they have had to
learn anything, miss out on developing these skills.  They have never
had to work at learning anything ... it always slipped right into their
brains with no fuss whatsoever.  For them, learning something becomes
only a matter of reading.

They don't know that this means that the authors of their books
and their teachers have been doing a truly excellent job at a really
hard task. Because they are indeed very, very, bright, it is
not surprising that they believe that the reason they learn well has
only to do with how intelligent they are.

Universities have to watch for these people.  Some of them cannot adapt
to an environment where they are exposed to people who cannnot teach,
texbooks which are clear as mud, and a where a failed undergraduate
<them> is not considered a major exisential tragedy.  After first term
exams, a significant subset of them jump off bridges and the like.

They could learn to program just fine.  But first they have to learn how
to learn.

Laura