I think the cognitive load of Atom (or any new fancy text editor) is being underestimated. I really like Atom, but a workshop might not be the best place to start people using it.
A lot of the time people are using whatever works, and if you ask them to change, you need a good reason - nano has the benefit of running on the command line. As a data point, I ran a course on Python as a contractor for a bunch of most self taught programmers (data analysts) last year, and as part of the prep, gave a survey on text editor use (NB AQT is a SQL tool the company has a license for). Other than me, no one was using Atom: AQT: 14 Sublime: 3 Emacs: 1 Vim: 2 Notepad++: 22 Eclipse: 1 Notepad: 4 other: 4 On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 12:15 PM, Carol Willing < [email protected]> wrote: > I would also encourage the move to Atom as the default editor. I believe > that Atom offers benefits that nano, while simple, does not offer. > > Installation of Atom is very stable. It works out of the box with no > additional configuration. It's "an editor that will be welcoming to an > elementary school student on their first day learning to code, but also a > tool they won't outgrow as they develop into seasoned hackers." [1] > > The 3 minute "Getting Started" video highlights the simplicity of Atom's > usage while leaving the door open to future extensibility by the user. [2] > The documentation is excellent, particularly the "Atom Basics" page, which > can be viewed in Linux, macOS, or Windows [3] > > Unlike nano, Atom was designed for people familiar with web browsing, and > it could be argued that nano while seeming simple to some is more difficult > to those that have grown up using the web browser daily. Having taught many > students in different workshops, Atom just works. It takes minutes to > install and students have no difficulty using it. I haven't seen students > have difficulty opening a file or navigating directories. > > As an instructor, while I am ok using nano, I would welcome using Atom. > > Carol > > [1] http://flight-manual.atom.io/getting-started/sections/why-atom/ > [2] https://atom.io/docs > [3] http://flight-manual.atom.io/getting-started/sections/atom- > basics/#platform-mac > > -- > Carol Willing > > Research Software Engineer, Project Jupyter > Cal Poly San Luis Obispo > > Director, Python Software Foundation > > Strengths: Empathy, Relator, Ideation, Strategic, Learner > > > Mark Laufersweiler wrote: > > I am against the move to atom for several reasonsI am not a big lover of > nano but over the course of teaching computing skills to meteorology > students for 20 years and working with the Carpentries for 3+ years nano > works for a first editor for several reasons. > > The first reason goes to the core of what we learned as instructors, > cognitive overload. On top of all the new information a learner is > receiving regarding shell, nano has the feature of all the important > commands being listed at the bottom of the editor. Nothing needs to be > learned about the editor. Fire it up, edit the file and when the question > comes how to quit, how to save, a learner just looks at the list at the > bottom. The one item to learn is that ^ means the Control key and then the > letter following the ^ are hit in sequence, holding down the Control key. > It is simple and bare bones. Nothing more complex to learn than that. > > This leads to the one quirk of Atom. Where is the open file option in any > of the menus? There is no directory tree or option window to have a person > move to a file outside of the directory that atom was evoked. You now need > to switch teaching about the shell to now teaching about how Atom revolves > around projects and that a project is a directory and it you want to open a > file not seen in the file listing window, you open a new project folder. > The file listing tree looks nothing like a OSX Finder or MS FileExplorer > window. The concept adds a layer of abstraction that is not about the > shell, but about project/file system management that is a distraction not a > help. It is not Notepad or TextEdit which most learners will have in used > their prior experiences with GUI editors that are not Office. > > Is nano perfect. Oh no. It in actuality terrible for code or long document > editing. But keep in mind that we as instructors may have some expert bias > creeping in. Think back to when you first started (ok, I am showing my age) > when the choices were vi (not vim), emacs and this little editor that > installed with pine called nano. We talk about in the Carpentries that our > learners come to the workshops to learn that there are better ways to work. > Editor choices work the same way. Starting out nano is fine, but as one > learns more, they realize that there may be a better way. They can then > work that out for themselves. I point this out to the learners in a work > shop that after the workshop, when revisiting the lessons, they may want to > work with a text editor that more fits their workflows and personal > preferences. But during the course of learning shell, git and a programing > language, I do not want to spend any more time than I have to other than to > say “All the editing commands that you will need to use are at the bottom > of your screen and the hat or carrot symbol means that you type and hold > the control key and then the letter, follow and answer the questions and > you should be back at the prompt in your shell”. Most of the issues raised > in this discussion are valid but not appropriate for beginners but in line > with intermediate and advance users. > > There are work arounds for when nano does not install. For MS Windows, > just have the learner type in the gitbash “start notepad [file]” and this > will open notepad (or notepad++). Most beginning learners will have some > familiarity with notepad. (For OSX, it is “open file.txt”.) > > Finally, the issue of installing a linux emulated environment of MS > Windows will be much easier when leaners all be on Windows 10. With the > latest OS, they can install the developer package for Ubuntu. Then git and > nano are just apt-get install nano git. https://www.howtogeek.com/?p= > 249966 > > -mjl > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > Mark Laufersweiler > [email protected] > > Bad weather looks best through an open window. > > > > > On Mar 30, at 4:58 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing > [email protected]http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss >
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