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Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java

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On 12/18/2013 1:32 PM, Stefan Ram wrote:
> Chris Riesbeck <Chris.Riesbeck@gmail.com> writes:
>> I looked at a couple of the early videos. A sincere effort but along
>> with learning Java, you'll learn a lot of bad habits, especially in
>> naming things. E.g., his first example is a hello world program in a
>> class called "apples," thereby managing to make three mistakes in one
>> short name.
>
>        1st) the name is not related to the meaning of the class
>             (most severe)
>        2nd) it does not start with an upper-case letter
>        3rd) it contains a comma
>
>    The quality assessments of beginners and experts often
>    differ. A beginner senses whether the learning process
>    triggered by reading a book makes him feel good, and will
>    not always recognize it when he learns something that is
>    wrong. When the book tells the beginner: »You can name a
>    class any way you like as long as the name sounds really
>    cool, for example, try funny fruit names.«, a young beginner
>    might actually like this stance. Possibly, he will continue
>    to read this book, while he would have stopped reading a
>    more boring book even though it is more correct in technical
>    terms. So, the funny book with the mistakes might actually
>    make him learn more (some of which is wrong).

I certainly agree with the need to engage and not intimidate the 
beginner. Knowing when to lie to students is an important part of 
teaching. One of the things that led me into math and then computer 
science was when a high school teacher misled me about what was already 
known about the square root of -1.

But the part of me that reads college student code sees all these 
programmers who believe names don't matter, when they probably matter 
more than anything else. So somewhere down the line, before they release 
code into the wild, it'd be nice if someone told them you write code for 
people to read, not just computers.

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Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java cate3@panix.com (Henry Cate) - 2013-12-16 17:11 -0500
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java markspace <markspace@nospam.nospam> - 2013-12-16 14:23 -0800
    Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Joerg Meier <joergmmeier@arcor.de> - 2013-12-17 00:06 +0100
    Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java cate3@panix.com (Henry Cate) - 2013-12-16 19:05 -0500
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-16 17:25 -0500
    Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java cate3@panix.com (Henry Cate) - 2013-12-16 19:01 -0500
      Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-16 22:42 -0500
        Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-16 23:36 -0500
          Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java cate3@panix.com (Henry Cate) - 2013-12-17 14:37 -0500
            Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2013-12-17 22:33 +0000
              Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-17 18:02 -0500
              Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java cate3@panix.com (Henry Cate) - 2013-12-17 18:25 -0500
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-16 21:58 -0500
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java "Charles Hottel" <chottel@earthlink.net> - 2013-12-17 00:28 -0500
    Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java cate3@panix.com (Henry Cate) - 2013-12-17 14:40 -0500
      Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2013-12-17 16:30 -0500
        Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using   Java Chris Riesbeck <Chris.Riesbeck@gmail.com> - 2013-12-18 12:50 -0600
          Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Chris Riesbeck <Chris.Riesbeck@gmail.com> - 2013-12-19 12:09 -0600
            Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjdehf@hotmail.com.invalid> - 2013-12-20 13:04 +0200
              Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Lars Enderin <lars.enderin@telia.com> - 2013-12-20 16:54 +0100
                Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2013-12-21 13:02 +0000
          Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Chris Riesbeck <Chris.Riesbeck@gmail.com> - 2013-12-19 12:22 -0600
          Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-30 15:14 -0500
          Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2@eastlink.ca> - 2014-01-02 01:58 -0400
            Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2014-01-02 20:26 -0500
      Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-12-17 18:01 -0500
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2013-12-17 08:09 +0000
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2013-12-17 13:49 -0800
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Ali Sh <ali.shahrivarian@gmail.com> - 2013-12-18 03:44 -0800
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java marianne.paradiso@gmail.com - 2013-12-19 12:02 -0800
  Re: Recommendations for an online Introduction to programming using Java Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-12-21 05:00 -0800

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