On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 11:55 AM, C. Titus Brown <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Nov 14, 2014, at 11:51 AM, Erik Bray <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 7:13 AM, Greg Wilson >> <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> I have copied the lesson on regular expressions (and its history) out of the >>> 'bc' repo and put it into a new repo, in the new format, at >>> https://github.com/gvwilson/regex. I've fixed a couple of small glitches in >>> the lesson template along the way, but more importantly, I've realized that >>> the regex lesson needs a complete overhaul: >>> >>> 1. When we teach regular expressions, we introduce people to patterns using >>> regexpal.com's interactive browser-based tool. The current regex lesson >>> doesn't --- it dives right into Python, which (a) adds cognitive complexity, >>> and (b) makes it inaccessible to non-Python workshops. >>> >>> 2. The existing lesson uses too much jargon. >>> >>> 3. And there aren't challenges for most parts. >>> >>> As the original author of this lesson, I feel I ought to clean all this up. >>> On the other hand, this would be a great opportunity for someone who's keen >>> to contribute to take on a medium-sized job for us... If you're interested, >>> please give me a shout. >> >> Not volunteering ;), but just as a thought--I remember at one workshop >> Jessica McKellar gave a great introduction to regexps under the theme >> of "How to Cheat at Scrabble". I've never actually taught regular >> expressions myself (at least not under SWC), but if I were going to >> I'd probably want a lesson plan somewhat akin to that. >> >> It still got into plenty of the nitty-gritty of what one can do with >> regexps, but having Scrabble as a driving example made it really fun >> and relevant, and people seemed to have no trouble relating what they >> learned to other problems of pattern matching, etc. > > This? > > http://www.skillshare.com/classes/technology/Intro-to-programming-teach-yourself-Python-while-cheating-at-Scrabble/98731973
What I saw was just a reduced version focused only the regular expressions part (somebody else taught basic intro to Python at that workshop). But yes, I thought it was a great way to introduce regexps and still managed to cover a lot of the important features of the language (though I think it's still good to include other examples of course, and Scrabble might not be relevant to every learner either). Erik _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
