On 2017-04-01 7:23 AM, C. Titus Brown wrote:
So! Actually! A significant early goal of Software Carpentry was to *build*
better tools! Some of you may remember scons and DrProject; their roots
were in a competition to design new tools...
My interpretation of the outcome of the "tools" phase was that Greg
and others realized that building tools was easier than getting community
adoption...and that
really we should be in the business of teaching good practice using whatever
tools were being used, while keeping an eye out for what tools might be better
than what we are currently using.
Thanks for the summary - the only thing I'd add is that if I could send
email back in time to my circa-2000 self, I'd tell the younger me about
the work that people like Andreas Stefik are doing to measure the
usability and learnability of tools [1], and tell myself to do that.
(Turns out that you're more likely to get a good answer if you science
things instead of just whacking one another with opinions and anecdotes...)
Cheers,
Greg
[1] http://neverworkintheory.org/2014/01/29/stefik-siebert-syntax.html
--
Nihil pro nobis sine nobis.
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