--- On Mon, 9/7/09, fudmer rieley <southofmex...@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: fudmer rieley <southofmex...@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Perl projects for beginners To: beginners@perl.org Date: Monday, September 7, 2009, 7:42 AM --- On Mon, 9/7/09, fudmer rieley <southofmex...@yahoo.com> wrote: From: fudmer rieley <southofmex...@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Perl projects for beginners To: "Raymond Wan" <r....@aist.go.jp> Date: Monday, September 7, 2009, 6:57 AM The need is for a problem book with real explained answers [producing such a problem book would be a massive undertaking]. Such a questions and answers server project would advance programming, and it would probably extend the need for books of all types of computer knowledge. the idea would advance programmer knowledge base. Each section should be clearly identified, and should outline the intention of each question, the design of the question basis and assumptions, the prerequisite knowledge required to answer it, and tutorial skills to get those deficient, the type of machines the answers given will run on, and the ways to study the concepts being tested by varying the question. Instructional design is what is needed. Top down is too slow, and covers too much of what people already know about. I need more knowledge in comma usage, but you need more in sentence construction. Why should we both study the weakness of the other? The questions should also state whether the solution is machine specific, language specific, or cross modal and its intentions, design, construction and intended outcomes. The University of Illinois tutor system called Plato had it worked out pretty well, but the colleges refused to use it, because it took away from the need for class and cost the book vendors and colleges revenues. Teaching like this needs to become open source and be available for no charge and it needs to be created by those who are still learning. The knowledge involved in Instructional design is a Phd in and of its self. But with proper ID, every person who learns off the Q&A server, could while they are learning programming, become highly aware and maybe even proficient in Instructional Design. The profession is not short on knowledge, it is short on distributing that knowledge. Teaching pilots to fly is the responsibility of every pilot in the sky. Some pilots have lots of experiences and knowledge, and some have nearly none. If "learners" are to become skilled, they need the help of the already skilled. Yet not one skilled pilot, knows it all. Weather is the greatest teacher, since weather changes the environment at will and without notice. Learning to fly must be done over and over again. Each new weather and each different aircraft environment makes a novice of the skilled and a Phd of the survivor. Same with programming, its a teach the teacher and learn from the student kind of profession. What is lacking is the interactive Q&A server that brings to novice to the skilled and makes instructional designers of the entire profession. I would really like to work on a project like that if there were some reasonable funding. --- On Mon, 9/7/09, Raymond Wan <r....@aist.go.jp> wrote: From: Raymond Wan <r....@aist.go.jp> Subject: Re: Perl projects for beginners To: "Gabor Szabo" <szab...@gmail.com> Cc: beginners@perl.org Date: Monday, September 7, 2009, 5:12 AM Hi Gabor, Gabor Szabo wrote: > As I think think the best way to learn Perl is tor practice a lot > and the best place to practice is an open source project I wonder > how can open source project become more beginner friendly? Follow-up to Philip's message...but I didn't reply to his post since I wanted to highlight your comment here. The best place to learn Perl [or "anything" for that matter] is to practice a lot. Agreed. "Best place to practice is an open source project" -- oh...I'm not so sure that is true. Let's remove the phrase "open source"...even so, I'm not so sure that a project [which presumably has more than one person working on it] is the best way to learn Perl as you end up with the issues that Philip mentioned...issues with software engineering which will end up distracting people. I think some (of course, not all) universities would teach a language or programming first by getting students to work alone. And then a year or two later, put them into groups and then that's when the teachers go nuts. :-) There are a lot of beginner books (not just Perl) out there which sometimes have "Practice problems" at the end of the chapter. I'm sure you could start with those if you want newbies to start with something... Of course, a more Perl-oriented book would be ideal. Ray -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
