Compsci.ca, a reflection

[wtd]

From a recent e-mail from myself to a colleague detailing my activities for the past few years.

---

I feel as though a lot of the students who have come to compsci.ca are
there precisely because they have been learning to program. Unlike
myself, most are learning in an organized classroom setting, yet I
think they come to the site and ask for help because they feel that
that system has in some way let them down and that they cannot get the
help they need from their teachers.

There are two types of problems that are posed. The first, and easier
problems are specific questions about a particular technology. In
these cases I am either familiar with that technology or not, and can
offer help on that basis.

Much more interesting is the problem of students who want to learn to
program, but are lost. Among this group there are two types of
people. I'm sure the division is well known to yourself and Richard.
There are those who heard from a relative or school counselor that
computer science and programming was a good path to a high-paying
career. This group is pretty hard to help. Unless they can go from
"Hello, world!" to building Quake 5 in a week or two, they get
frustrated and move on.

The others are the passionate ones. They represent the fun challenge
for me. They may or may not have recognized that passion within
themselves, but either way they've decided to take a computer science
class. Something, however, has gone wrong. They're ready to give up.
Identifying that problem is one of the most stimulating intellectual
challenges I've ever experienced. Learn Spanish or Mandarin is in the
running for that distinction as well, though.

The problem for these students is almost always one of two things.
They may find the course unsatisfying. Perhaps the teacher is
unenthusiastic or the pace is slowed for the ones who have no passion
for the subject. For these students, I have attempted to craft
lessons that can convey a fundamental understanding of the conceptual
material and specific programming language knowledge that their
courses are likely to cover. With it being online, and an open forum,
there is no one holding them back from learning as fast as they want.
This is something I'm sure JJ People is very familiar with. An
example of the work I have done in this regard is to craft an
introductory Java tutorial aimed at rather rapidly introducing OOP
concepts. For those students at schools still using it, I have also
written extensively on the subject of C and C++.

The other group appeals to the polyglot in me. They have few problems
with the course, but just find that for whatever reason, the
particular language being used to demonstrate concepts is either
unappealing or incomprehensible to them. Dealing with this group
probably represents the greatest amount of work I have done on the
site because there is little way for me to know which language will
make all of the concepts make sense. I describe my approach to this
as throwing languages at a wall, and seeing which stick. I've briefly
delved into numerous languages hoping to spark some interest. When
languages do elicit that interest, I will generally devote
considerably more effort to them.

The biggest success I've had in that regard has probably been Ruby,
but I've also encouraged considerable interest in functional
programming in the Objective-Caml programming language and recently at
least one other contributor has expressed interest in SML. I have
also written about Objective-C, C#, D, Pascal, Eiffel, Perl, Python,
Erlang, Haskell, Scala, Nice, Scheme, Common Lisp, and likely others
I'm forgetting at the moment.

The successes I've had in this endeavor have been hugely satisfying
for me. I know that the academic world either won't or can't afford
to employ this strategy to encourage passionate young programmers, so
it's nice to think that perhaps I am better in some way, despite the
fact that I don't have a degree.

[cool dude]

don't shoot me for asking but what do you do as a career?

[we64]

cool dude wrote:

don't shoot me for asking but what do you do as a career?

lol, I wonder the same thing.

[md]

I would like to offer my thanks to wtd for all the work he has put into his tutorials, and for answering many questions from many people. I believe that wtd is one of our most outstanding members and we as a community should be grateful to have him here.

So thank you wtd for all your hard work, and for getting me to actually think about scheme and lisp as useful languages.

[wtd]

Thank you.

[Cervantes]

I, too, offer my sincere thanks. I owe the vast majority of what I know about programming to you, wtd. But even more important than all the knowledge you've given me is the realization that there is so much to learn in the world of computer science, and the tools to learn that material.

I know it's been frustrating for you at times. I'm amazed at how much you've truly accomplished. Three cheers for wtd!

[Tony]

code:

3.times{cheer(wtd)}

I own my tool choices (OSX, Ruby) to wtd, as well as getting to be so much more open minded about the technology out there.

[rdrake]

Tony wrote:

I own my tool choices (OSX, Ruby) to wtd, as well as getting to be so much more open minded about the technology out there.

Definitely one of the most important things I have learned from you, wtd. Opened my mind so much .

[apomb]

i may have said some stupid things before, but wtd, you truly do give considerable effort to this site and to anyone who asks for help. I guess its up to the person asking the questions whether or not to take the advice and help constructively. Sincere gratitude towards you, wtd

-Adrian

[Delos]

Huzzah for wtd, apparently the inspiration for our annual What-The-Duck-athon...now, my question (rather comment) is, that was written in GMail, right...that alignment looks mighty familiar!

[wtd]

Yes, it was written in GMail.

And thank you.

[Naveg]

I realize i'm somewhat of a lurker on this forum these days...but let me utter my words of thanks to wtd as well. When I first came to compsci.ca during my first year of high school for help with my Turing projects, it was you who enabled me to uncover my hidden passion for computer science. Your tutorials and brief glimpses at various languages are nothing short of extraordinary!

[wtd]

Thank you.

[[Gandalf]]

Thank you wtd, for all the help, great tutorials, and overall insightful thoughts. Whenever I've asked for help you've been willing to give it, whether through the IRC channel or in any of the compsci.ca forums. You are always brewing up a new tutorial which, whether I understand it or not, is always something to ponder over. All the effort you put into passing down your immense wisdom and knowledge to the younglings here is greatly appreciated and has personally been of great benefit to me.

Right now I'm more than half asleep and probably not making any sense, so I'll finish here. Keep it up!

[TokenHerbz]

yeah wtd is a good guy, as are many others who teach, and explain on this site. Iv'e had help from many many people, and its awsome that i actually learnd what i know now, out of school, from here...

I enjoy programming, and i wish i was much better at it, and with that means more learning, something which is very hard to teach yourself, when you dont know it. (try learning french by yourself, you know its going to be hard)

Alot of people lay down information, concepts and help to make the path easier. Perhaps we should have lessons made up like ones that would be found at a school, to go over the basics, math need'd, how to implement it, OOP, and really advanced things, in Turing, or C++, both of which im really interested in ... Idea's to expand, and use the knowledge you learn so your not to forget it, and little quiz's to test if you should go onto the next lesson.

Iv'e been on the hunt for a turing one, and i've yet to find it.. Link anyone?


Anyways, ofcourse its 6:40am, im a night hawk, missed everyone in irc, but props wtd, and all you others:)