Re: [Edu-sig] explaining functions [Possibly OT]

In a message of Mon, 06 Dec 2004 01:24:02 +0100, Gregor Lingl writes:
And the climax was when I made them fix _each others_ code to make it produce the correct results. I was called 'mean' for that. :-)
By all means, what does 'mean' mean in this context? Gregor
Well, somewhere along the line -- and these children were 9, 10 years old -- they had absorbed the notion that what programming was all about was for each of them personally to make code that generated the correct result. The notion that it is also about producing something that somebody else can a) understand and b) modify was entirely outside of their experience. The concept 'this answer is right, but this style is lousy, so you should not do things this way' is one that, as far as I could tell, they had never experienced before. And these are very bright children -- so their model of how the world works was 'if the teacher says you have to do it her way when your way produces the correct result, then the teacher is either too stupid to understand how your way works or just likes making you do things over in order to assert her authority'. So she's a fool or a bully. And matters were not helped that I inherited this group from a person who had taught them 'cute calculator triƧks', which mean that they thought an interpreter was a fancy calculator. So -- figure out how to solve things and type away at the interpreter until you get the magic, all-important _correct answer_ was exactly what they were used to. So the problem 'you have to make _his_ program work while he has to make _your_ program work' was revolutionary. And some of the really brightest people, found not being able to throw away the whole thing, and start over really, really, frustrating. (And, given the code some of them started with, no wonder :-) ) And not all of them were able to do it. But all of them had a direct personal insight as to why 'bad coding style' was *bad* that did not involve 'pointless rules and other stupid things'. So in an admiring tone they marched off, saying 'oh, Miss, that was _really_ mean, making us do that. That was _so_ _hard_'. Made my day. Laura
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Laura Creighton