in reply to Re^3: Your main event may be another's side-show.
in thread Your main event may be another's side-show.

I find students who have entered the working-world who do not really know how to work with more-“indefinite,” production, code bases.

Certainly people with less experience tend to have less nuanced understandings of the world than people with more experience.

If you discredit anything based on the inexperience of novice developers, you have to discredit everything. The fact that a fresh undergrad might use Singleton everywhere by no means lessons the value of being able to say "This calls for a Schwartzian transform!" or "I'll just throw in the Y combinator!" in my mind.

  • Comment on Re^4: Your main event may be another's side-show.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^5: Your main event may be another's side-show.
by Anonymous Monk on Oct 18, 2010 at 23:21 UTC

    Teh question is: does starting people of with paint by numbers lead to the eventual creation of good artists?

    Or simply lots of people who are expert at painting by numbers?

    I don't think there is a definitive answer to that. It is a question that has raged in education circles for decades.

    Whether it was 'The New Math' or 'Phonetic (developmental) Spelling' or a raft of other attempts to simplify the teaching process, they all rely upon the presumption that eventually, the 'proper' knowledge will take hold and supplant the teaching aid in the minds of those so educated.

    But there is an old adage that it is far harder to unlearn your bad habits that it would have been to learn the right way to start with. And history shows that to be the case.

    Another old adage is: those whom ignore history, are destined to repeat it.

[reply]

      Another you might add to your bag of holding: Un bon mot ne prouve rien.

[reply]
        A cute saying does not make it so.

        So true. Maybe this is more convincing.

        Or even this:

        A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

        For example, in Year 1 that useless letter c would be dropped to be replased either by k or s, and likewise x would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which c would be retained would be the ch formation, which will be dealt with later.

        Year 2 might reform w spelling, so that which and one would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish y replasing it with i and Iear 4 might fiks the g/j anomali wonse and for all.

        Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.

        Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez c, y and x — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais ch, sh, and th rispektivli.

        Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

        Mark Twain

[reply]

In Section Meditations