On Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:36 -0500, "Uri Guttman" <[email protected]> wrote: > >>>>> "RK" == Robin Kenyon <[email protected]> writes: > > RK> As a teacher, I'd disagree...My experience leads me to believe > bluntly > RK> shooting down beginners discourages them. I wouldn't be surprised > if > RK> the poster has left the list and perhaps even gone as far as > leaving > RK> perl well alone, depending on his current level of ability. > > i teach perl as well. when i see someone going down a rabbit hole it is > important to stop that before it gets too far. if they leave the list or > perl, they won't be happy in any other language or forum since that is > how computers work. they are unforgiving and those with thin skins > can't take seeing error messages (from humans OR computers) will likley > move on. programming isn't for everyone however easy it may seem on the > surface. > > i give out a general programming quiz to students. one pair of the > questions is why is programming easy? and why is programming hard? > > let's see your answers. :) > > uri
I would say, as a beginner: Programming is easy because it's all about telling the computer what you want it to do (though you might think you've told it what you want it to do, it may do something else based on what you've actually told it to do). Two computers are generally not going to do something different based on the same command in the similar environment. It is easy because you know you can do anything. Programming is hard because it's abstract, it's difficult to explain, many places/people explain it poorly, and everyone needs it explained differently. Programming generally takes a lot of time to get something half decent, then it's not so bad. Problem solving doesn't always come naturally, though can be nurtured. And as stated above, you might thing you've told the computer to do something, but you may not have understood what you actually asked it to do. Once one is more experienced: Programming is easy because you know what you are doing most of the time. Poorly documented libraries/modules/etc. you can figure out based on previous knowledge. You understand the foundation of programming and you understand the language you are using. Programming is hard because the more you do, the higher you set your sights. You look to bigger and better challenges and you realise just how vast computing and programming is. Not a set of questions I've been asked before... While I agree that you should stop people going down the wrong path early, I still think some consideration should be made, explaining why they are going down the wrong path is, in my opinion, better than kicking them on to the right one. Robin -- Robin Kenyon [email protected] -- http://www.fastmail.fm - IMAP accessible web-mail -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] http://learn.perl.org/
