I would suggest any attempt to teach people to code should begin with
Software Carpentry <http://www.software-carpentry.org/about/90seconds.html>.
An important point here is that there are many misconceptions about
programing and teaching that won't stand up to empirical investigation.
<http://software-carpentry.org/4_0/softeng/ebse.html>
I'm afraid on that score, Perl is not a good choice for a first language
(nor is VBScript or VBA). I know people won't like me for saying that
but there is hope of getting past religious wars if we insist on
evidence over opinion.
Chris
On 2/15/2013 8:59 AM, Joe Hourcle wrote:
On Feb 15, 2013, at 8:22 AM, Kyle Banerjee wrote:
On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 7:40 AM, Jason Griffey <[email protected]> wrote:
The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of people have absolutely no clue how
code translates into instructions for the magic glowing screen they look at
all day. Even a tiny bit of empowerment in that arena can make huge
differences in productivity and communication abilities
This is what it boils down to.
C4l is dominated by linux based web apps. For people in a typical office
setting, the technologies these involve are a lousy place to start learning
to program. What most of them need is very different than what is discussed
here and it depends heavily on their use case and environment.
A bit of VBA, vbs, or some proprietary scripting language that interfaces
with an app they use all the time to help with a small problem is a more
realistic entry point for most people. However, discussion of such things
is practically nonexistent here.
Well, as you mention that ... I'm one of the organizers of the
DC-Baltimore Perl Workshop :
http://dcbpw.org/dcbpw2013/
Last year, we targeted the beginner's track as a sort of 'Perl
as a second language', assuming that you already knew the basic
concepts of programming (what's a variable, an array, a function,
etc.)
Would it be worth us aiming for an even lower level of expertise?
-Joe
ps. Students & the unemployed are free ... $25 before March 1st,
$50 after; will be April 20th at U. Baltimore. We're also
in talks with a training company to have either another track
of paid training or a separate day (likely Sunday); they
wouldn't necessarily be Perl-specific.
