Teaching python to non-programmers

[Rhodri James]

On Fri, 11 Apr 2014 21:20:05 +0100, <pete.bee.emm at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, April 10, 2014 3:40:22 PM UTC-7, Rhodri James wrote:
>> It's called irony, and unfortunately Mark is reacting to an  
>> all-to-common
>> situation that GoogleGroups foists on unsuspecting posters like  
>> yourself.
>
> People who say "I can't be bothered to correct this" while posting a  
> wise a$$ correction are just trolling, probably not funny in real life  
> either. I think if you're going to wise off than be witty about it,  
> otherwise just a terse reference to a link.

99% of the time, Mark is the one to make a brief comment with the link I  
gave you.  And often gets roundly condemned for daring to suggest that GG  
is not a shining beacon of perfection, for clearly the rest of us are  
complaining out of jealousy.  See my previous comments about straws and  
camels' backs.  Also irony.

> At any rate, my original point stands. You're not teaching on planet  
> Vulcan. Better to teach things in an odd order if that helps motivates  
> your students. It's not like people in real life carefully examine all  
> available documentation before learning some piece of tech. Usually they  
> shrug and say "what's the worst that could happen", dive in, and roll  
> with the consequences%10.

Since "the worst that could happen" with some of the kit I've worked on is  
that I kill people, I have to disagree.  Some flexibility is good, but if  
you want to understand how something works you do need to go through it in  
a logical order.  Otherwise you can end up knowing lots of bits but having  
no understanding of how they interact or hang together.  That's fine if  
you want to learn how to write programs, but it's terrible if you want to  
become a programmer.

-- 
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeest Herder to the Masses