On Aug 23, 2008, at 4:44 AM, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
I'm of the belief that you don't show people bad style, no matter
what their
level, and especially newbies, because they tend to fall back on
what they
learn first.
My experience teaching for ten years at university is help beginners
get something working fast (early success), then help them refine it
as needed. That's more like real development anyhow. For instance,
you represented each hand as a Set. It won't be long before that
turns out to be inadequate and they want a BridgePlayer to keep track
not only of unplayed cards, but tricks they've won, their bid, etc...
Also I hinted at the value of collection when using the hands
temporary to do the deal. That was also intentional.
People improve over time and there is value in teaching them how to
recognize when things need improvement (or refactoring as the
buzzworders like to say). It would not be long before the individual
would recognize that he was doing too much boilerplate and start
looking to reduce the work.
So there's my philosophy for teaching programming. Stuff I post on
newbies is often intentionally naive/simple/concept limited.
-Todd Blanchard
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