[Edu-sig] explaining functions [Possibly OT]

[Laura Creighton]

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 triçks', 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