+1 to using a paper outline in Markdown as a motivating example - it'll
be easier to introduce people to Markdown than to any particular
programming language...
Cheers,
Greg
On 2017-07-31 10:25 AM, Konrad Förstner wrote:
Hi,
in a recent class we replaced the Dracula/Wolfman story with the
situation to write collaboratively a manuscript with very basic
markdown. Maybe that could be a general, programming language agnostic
solution with a scenarion that is releveant for many participiants.
Cheers
Konrad
On Mon Jul 31, 2017 at 03:05:53PM +0200, Lex Nederbragt wrote:
Hi,
Adding a thought: if the ‘Dracula/Wolfman’ story in the git lesson is
to be
changed to some actual programming, we run into the ‘in what
language’ issue:
we sometimes teach workshops where we teach unix + git + R instead of
unix +
git + python. A python-based git lesson would be useless for such
workshops...
Lex
On 29 Jul 2017, at 16:04, Mateusz Kuzak <[email protected]>
wrote:
Hi all,
Anelda, thank you for starting this discussion. Teaching Git
lesson have
been on my mind quite a lot lately. I have also discussed it with
other
instructors and gathered feedback from the learners. Here are my
observations:
* The Dracula and Wolfman content of the lesson is too far away
from the
programming situation. While in theory it should make it easier to
understand git concepts without focusing on the programming part,
I find
that it confuses learners even more. I believe there is a need for
more
real life example and we should opt for teaching Git lesson after
introducing basic programming.
* Version Control is like backups, people know they need it (once
they
understand what version control is) but it’s very hard to get them
excited
about it. On the other hand it’s very easy to “sell” git as a
collaboration
tool, via GitHub. Learners are usually very excited when going
through
forking, pull requests and online reviews. In my opinion showing
how things
work via the web interface and only after introducing command line
equivalents works better. I’m not saying it’s better in general,
but we
have to keep in mind our learners just started using the command
line a day
before and have been using the web and web application for years.
best,
Mateusz
On 10 Jul 2017, 15:15 +0200, [email protected], wrote:
Hi Anelda,
I replace the Dracula example with Python code at
https://github.com/rgaiacs/swc-git-novice-euroscipy2016. This
was for
Git Workshop last year during EuroScipy.
I've been wondering how we can simultaneously give a broader
exposure
to GitHub GUI as I (since I'm not a software developer but
often
collaborate with others on GitHub) mostly use GitHub and
haven't
had to
use git command line probably for a year now because I
could do
everything I needed in the GUI. Not that I am promoting not
teaching
the command line way of using git, but for people who've
never ever
encountered version control it might be more accessible to
first
build
a mental model by learning GitHub and then going to the
next step
of
learning the command line tool.
If you are teaching Git for non-developers you can probably
stay with
the online GUI provided by GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket/... but if
you are
teaching Git for developers you will need to teach the the
command line
or any local GUI since otherwise they will not be able to
share their
changes easy.
I've been wondering if there is something that can come
before the
git-novice lesson to help the target audience of our
workshops
understand the value of version control and tools like
GitHub. Any
pointers to something that is even more foundational to
help build
mental models and create a interest to learn version
control would
be
very welcome.
My impression is that the students never program before or
only hack
some small scripts they don't have experience to give the
correct value
to version control since Google Docs and similar do a great job.
On this line, my last own experience teaching Git showed me
that we
should use at least two files to make more clear for
instructors why
version control is important. For example, you can use Dropbox
to share
code with your collaborator but one day you change the code
and your
collaborator change the configuration file and next morning
the code
doesn't work. How do you make the code work again? With Git,
you will
know of the merge when you two sync and check the differences.
Kind regards,
Raniere
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