Also +1 to Noam's suggestion On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 4:59 AM, Ethan White <[email protected]> wrote:
> I support this change in concept and agree with Noam that it should only > be undertaken broadly following experimentation to make sure it works more > effectively than the current approach and to iron out any unanticipated > issues. > > Ethan > On 03/30/2017 07:13 AM, Noam Ross wrote: > > I support this, but I think the appropriate approach is to gather > evidence. Many (most?) changes to lessons and methods start as experiments > by instructors, so I think a set of instructors should produce the > following for an upcoming workshop, which other instructors can try out: > > - A fork of the workshop webpage with install instructions > - A fork of the shell lesson > - A fork of the git lesson > > Then, following some reports from instructors after a few workshops and a > few inevitable tweaks, we can see if this merits widespread adoption. > > I agree with Tracy that command-line editor skills are potentially useful > for many learners, but I think (without real evidence) that (a) learning a > simple command line editor like nano is a low barrier *once one is familiar > with the shell and the notion of a text editor already*, so people using > remote machines will be much of the way there under this approach, and (b) > the overall gain in improved workshop flow may be more important. A > command-line editor may be one of the things one "demos" in a workshop > where learners have a question or one anticipates that some have immediate > remote computing needs. > > On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 5:58 AM Raniere Silva <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> today at the workshop, >> one of the our Windows learners asked me why after quit nano the >> previous command weren't available when scroll the window up. >> The learner was very annoyed to not be able to see the history. >> >> I would like to motion to change nano with Atom as the recommended/default >> text editor for our workshops. I don't want to start yet another flame >> war, >> we already had lots and lots of discussion about this, >> so I will summarise the benefits and drawback of my proposal. >> I will ask that before suggest another text editor instead of Atom, >> stop and think that the text editor will benefit novice learners >> instead of just make your life easy as instructor because you use X on >> your daily work. (I don't use Atom!) >> >> # Benefits >> >> - Is open source. >> - (Just) works in Windows, Mac and Linux. >> - Easy to install in Windows, Mac and Linux. >> - "All versions" are available to Windows, Mac and Linux. >> >> Some software, e.g. Skype, works in Windows, Mac and Linux but >> different versions are available to different OS. >> - Configure PATH to be accessible from Git Bash. >> >> No need for extra configuration or our script to fix PATH. >> - Well mantained and supported. >> - Syntax highlight out of the box (AFAIK). >> - Lots of plugins for learners that decide to keep using Atom. >> >> AFAIK there is a plugin that allow learners to use Atom >> to edit remote files, e.g. on clusters. >> - Beautiful interface. >> >> # Drawback >> >> - Learners and instructions will need to switch windows. >> >> # (My own) conclusions >> >> Replace nano with Atom will avoid many of the our issues during the >> workshop, such as "we will use nano but if you don't have nano you can >> use X", and reduce the volunteer work that we need to maintain the >> quality of our workshops. The price that we will need to pay is switch >> windows during the workshop. >> >> Thanks, >> Raniere >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss > > >
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