[Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning

[Atul Varma]

For what it's worth, Kernighan and Plauger's "The Elements of
Programming Style" claim that "If someone could understand your code
when read aloud over the telephone, it's clear enough. If not, then it
needs rewriting."

I first came across this quote when reading Graham Nelson's paper
"Natural Language, Semantic Analysis, and Interactive Fiction", which
describes a programming language called Inform 7 that would be
particularly easy to teach using only audio:

  http://www.inform-fiction.org/I7Downloads/Documents/WhitePaper.pdf

It's not Python, of course, and works written using Inform 7 aren't
usually very algorithmic in nature.  In fact, I think that it's more
mathematics in general, rather than programming specifically, that is
hard to convey with only audio, but this could be because I've only
ever learned it visually.  Allowing the listener to easily rewind the
audio seems like a must-have, as it often takes people a variable
amount of time to understand mathematical concepts, especially when
they're continuously being built on top of one another.

- Atul

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:45 PM, Charles Cossé <ccosse at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 11:48 AM, David MacQuigg
> <macquigg at ece.arizona.edu> wrote:
>> Can you really learn Python this way?  Try writing some code after listening to a verbal explanation only.  Even if you have amazing powers to visualize what you hear, the verbal description, even for something as simple as a for-loop, would be tedious.
>>
>
> If you are stuck in a car for an hour each day and you want to listen
> to such an audio book, then it's a 0,1 proposition.  You could at
> least learn about object-oriented thinking, and qualitative features
> of the language.  It would be a good challenge to attempt to make
> programming understandable, to a degree, through an audiobook.
>
>> -- Dave
>>
>>
>
> Good Idea!
> Charles Cosse
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