On 2007-04-24, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Antoon Pardon wrote: >> On 2007-04-24, Michael Bentley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > >> > On Apr 24, 2007, at 6:35 AM, Antoon Pardon wrote: >> > >> >> People don't read tutorials in a strictly linear fashion. They can >> >> continue to later subjects and then come back here to see how things >> >> tie together. So the fact that it is only confusing to those who >> >> know more than is already presented doesn't seem a very good reason >> >> to leave it in. >> > >> > Yet they understand that earlier in the document, there is likely to >> > be a less complete coverage of a given topic. There is in fact, a >> > link on that page that includes a more complete coverage of that >> > topic (which I mentioned to you in an earlier message IIRC). >> >> That there is more complete coverage elsewhere is no good reason >> to come with an explanation that suggests things working in >> a way that will be contradicted by that more complete coverage. > > I happen to agree with you, but that's not a completely non- > controversial position. Many tutorials/manuals will prevent a > simplified (and incorrect for the general case) description of how > something works early on, and then clarify it later for the general > case. Personally I'd usually rather have the complete description > earlier rather than an incorrect simplification, or at least have a > footnote to the effect of "this is a simple introduction, the full > behavior will be described later". > > But there's a good argument to be made for omitting confounding > details early on in a tutorial if there's a pedogogical reason for > doing so--indeed, there's such a widespread belief that early > oversimplification is actually helpful that I'd guess the majority of > language tutorials engage in it to some degree.
Thank you for bringing this up so explicitly. I must confess this point hadn't entered my mind but it is worth thinking about. I'll see if I can come up with a new proposal bearing this in mind. Thank you. -- Antoon Pardon -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
