On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 5:23 PM, Carl Karsten <c...@nextdayvideo.com> wrote:
> I think the point of this thread is: how important is this subject? > > I don't know that there's a scale of 1-10 answer. If / when it comes up, as a student question, it becomes important, but also instructors need to explain how a given object may have many names, whereas of we're focused on "containers" how does that look? > I have one of many answers: in my 2 hour 500 line intro to python, it gets > about 60 seconds spent on this 1 line: > > """Other languages have variables; technically, Python doesn't. But it has > something that looks like a var: It has names. So don't call it a var. For > a good explanation of this see > http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/handout.html#other-languages-have-variables > """ > This is excellent. I was racking my brains where to find visuals like this, specifically showing the buckets versus post-its models. I've added links to my make_links_v2.py and make_links_v3.py @ <guild /> [1] This thread was useful for our trains at PDX Code Guild at least, as I'm having philosophical differences with some of my peers regarding the uber-basics and how best to teach them. I've been told repeatedly that code school students will start out *not* knowing what a variable is and my number one most important responsibility, right from the get go, is to introduce the concept. Fine. But what if the curriculum hard-codes that we should see variables as "containers". Before I lead a boot camp, Python-centric, I want to make sure I'm not shackled to a misinforming presentation I'm not comfortable teaching. It'd just feel wrong, like I'm lying, to force the "container metaphor". I needed ammo. By now, thanks to these threads today, I feel well armed in my views that I'm free to avoid said metaphor if I want to. Here's a screen shot of our faculty Slack feed from a few minutes ago: https://flic.kr/p/DduBoA There's enough consensus out there to defend my position. Yay. What I want to avoid is another instructor insisting on the "variable as container" metaphor to a point where I feel I have to do extra work to undo that picture. Thanks again for the tools, should that come up. Kirby [1] https://www.dropbox.com/home/PDX%20Code%20Guild/Accelerated%20Programming%20%28fork%29
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