Nov 23, 2023Liked by Rodrigo Girão Serrão 🐍🚀, Stephen Gruppetta
@mathsppblog you should bother with the programming standard from the very first minute you start teaching! Bad habits are harder to unlearn than correct habits picked up first time!
@stephengruppetta when you said "(...)no analogy is perfect." it immediately reminded me of this quote (and I see an analogy here ;) ):
> Bad habits are harder to unlearn than correct habits picked up first time!
Absolutely! I'll just have to learn how to strike a good balance between not bothering them at all versus stopping them in their tracks every time they don't leave a space around an operator!
Yes, I also try to find a nuance between bombarding beginners with all the fine detail and not making their life harder in those early days which are already hard. I think you can't get beginners to do everything perfectly right away. For example, they should first learn how to initialise and empty list and populate it with `.append()` in a `for` loop–I don't even try to show them comprehensions until much later (when they're ready for Comprehending Comprehensions, say!)
Same is try with PEP8 issues. My approach is to always use the correct formatting and syle in my versions and point it out to them from time to time, while also telling them they don't need to worry about this just yet!
And this is hard for me because my mild compulsion means that I want everything to be perfectly formatted. In most of my code, when I run Black I get no changes - how sad is that! So seeing beginners mess up spacing and not barking at them is hard!!
Funny you say that. I did that in a video I was recording yesterday for a beginner's course (the Epilogue of A Python Tale, which is now complete and published), but after showing them this (it was a long `if` with an `and` which looks weird when broken up), I undid the change and told them not to worry about the warning that the line is too long for now!
@mathsppblog you should bother with the programming standard from the very first minute you start teaching! Bad habits are harder to unlearn than correct habits picked up first time!
@stephengruppetta when you said "(...)no analogy is perfect." it immediately reminded me of this quote (and I see an analogy here ;) ):
~All models are wrong, some are useful.
> ~All models are wrong, some are useful.
I like this and yes, it applies to analogies perfectly!
> Bad habits are harder to unlearn than correct habits picked up first time!
Absolutely! I'll just have to learn how to strike a good balance between not bothering them at all versus stopping them in their tracks every time they don't leave a space around an operator!
Yes, I also try to find a nuance between bombarding beginners with all the fine detail and not making their life harder in those early days which are already hard. I think you can't get beginners to do everything perfectly right away. For example, they should first learn how to initialise and empty list and populate it with `.append()` in a `for` loop–I don't even try to show them comprehensions until much later (when they're ready for Comprehending Comprehensions, say!)
Same is try with PEP8 issues. My approach is to always use the correct formatting and syle in my versions and point it out to them from time to time, while also telling them they don't need to worry about this just yet!
And this is hard for me because my mild compulsion means that I want everything to be perfectly formatted. In most of my code, when I run Black I get no changes - how sad is that! So seeing beginners mess up spacing and not barking at them is hard!!
I sometimes write a line that I know is too long and let black break it up for me :P
I follow a similar approach.
Funny you say that. I did that in a video I was recording yesterday for a beginner's course (the Epilogue of A Python Tale, which is now complete and published), but after showing them this (it was a long `if` with an `and` which looks weird when broken up), I undid the change and told them not to worry about the warning that the line is too long for now!
I replied to the wrong comment. This technology is stuff is too hard - I'm getting too old
They invented a button called “delete”, but you don't need to worry about it for now! 🤣