Microsoft asks 'So who wants to be a programmer?'

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Poor way to teach...: I was asked to review this content awhile back and at the time I said it had the same problem almost every "self taught" program/book/system to learn coding suffers from. The lack of teaching structure in programming.

If you ever look at code from a "non-professional" the very first thing you see is that it's a fur ball with no structure to it. People that are self taught learn REALLY BAD habits that always prove to be a major pain to break. I've known coders with some fairly decent little apps that don't have the first clue what a flow chart is or why it's important.

I teach an adult ed class that runs 6 weeks, three nights a week, three times a year. The first week no one is allowed to touch a PC, instead students are given (gasp) pen and paper and we work on building flow charts. Students are given a specific task and create flow charts. Each is reviewed by the entire class and we look at why one approach is better than another.

This usually results in a final flow chart that incorporates something from each student and the class finalizes the flow chart we will use to build code against. At that point students are allowed to start writing code.

The end result? Code that works, is object oriented, and meets the criteria set by the task objective and flow chart requirements.

Is it successful? I can't tell you how many people have completed the class and then said something like, "I've been writing code for years and never knew how much I didn't know and how important structure is". (Or words to that effect.)

For unknown reasons people that want to teach programming seem to over look the baiscs of good structure and that is a huge mistake.

PS: It doesn't matter what the coding environment is, good coding practice is good coding practice and there is no such thing as too much documentation.; Posted by: No_Ax_to_Grind Posted on: 03/01/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use