> Writing only small programs is harmful. Students must get the chance to > write medium programs and to refactor them a lot. I think that any > attempt at teaching good style and structure by "here is how you should > write" is futile. > Only by experiencing the hard way how is it to program without good > structure will one learn its importance. > > -- > Beni Cherniavsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, who can only read email on weekends.
My approach is the same one used by other language teachers (e.g. of Spanish or Japanese): don't just focus on writing the stuff; read it also. And what you read may be quite a few notches ahead, in terms of level. It's easier to read that to write. So, for example, with my Povray scene description language generator, I don't have time to take students through reinventing that wheel. I spring it on them full-blown, if simplified (my complicated versions aren't so easy to grasp). They read it for comprehension, and as their coding skills improve, it also becomes a place to take off from, i.e. they're able to modify and add features. This is true-to-life in open source work: the first big programs you refactor and/or modify in some way, were probably written by others. Kirby _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
