What is Compsci.ca?

[Hackmaster]

Hey guys!

I just have a bit of a concern regarding this site.

I am a relativly experienced programmer. I know 1 language fantasticly, and in 2 others I'm pretty good. I've been doing this stuff for 4 years. I love this site. It has given me ideas, and a means to carry out those ideas. I'm going to submit a full fledged RPG to this site in june, written entirely alone, based on some of the skills that compsci has taught me as a coder. I am only in grade 10, however, which means the reason I am looking at this site and getting Ideas, and giving help, is becuase I don't learn a damn thing in class. it's not the teachers fault, either. She isn't supposed to teach objects in grade 10. hell, she's not even supposed to teach it in grade 11. but I already know that stuff.

That is why I love this site. you have people here from the University of Waterloo, some teachers, and in general, a great host of people. for me.

But what about the kid who started programming a month ago? He loves it so far, and he's having fun. this is the situation that I'm worried about.

Kids across canada learn turing as a first language. which would mean that there is a lot more kids who don't know what they are doing in the turing forums. right? then why is it that when a kid asks a simple question about a program that uses a random function, he will be blasted to kingdom come for using the word "randint"? There are a few posts with this particular example on the site. its crazyiness! if I ask a simple question regarding randint, and the first 5 replies are all about "don't use randint, use Rand.Int(). it is much better for several reasons, including (insert complex crap in here)"

would that make me want to come back to the site? no. heck, would it make me want to continue programming? not really.

now, several of you are going to say that you need to learn right the first time, or else you will fall into habits. that's not right at all! C provides a good example. first, you learn about vars. one of those is strings. but it isn't really a string. it's actually an array of chars. string parsers simply iterate through the array looking for whatever. but when you learn, you don't need to, and don't want to hear about it! I believe that the people who are interested will ask questions. the people who aren't, won't, and they will be happy with what they just learned untill they are ready to ask the question "Why?". you shouldn't inflict learning.

now don't miss-interpret this post to mean that I don't know what i'm talking about. I do. Rand.Int() is better than randint. I'm not going to go into them.. there are lots and lots of posts about it. look it up. but what I'm saying is, in summary, I think that compsci is geared a bit too much towards the wrong audience. java, C, Ruby, these languages have many more people who know what they are doing. feel free to be finikity. but turing is an odd language that way. there are some people, like me, who know about coding, and are pursuing turing simply for interests' sake, and they want to see what the language will do. that's great. we care about the details. some guy who started 2 months ago really doesn't.

in summary (if you are still reading) I think that compsci needs to step back and look at who they are talking to before they go into crazy detail about something that is purely for good practice. this site can be shared by not just the academics, but the learners, too. This isn't something everyone does. as a matter of fact, I think that there are only a few. If I leave you with one thought, though, let it be this:

out of those few that are making it hard to learn, they may be killing the beginning of bill gates V2.

If you are still reading, I thank you for listening to me ramble, I ask you to give me an opinion: is compsci geared to much towards experience?

Thanks!!

[rdrake]

Hackmaster wrote:

then why is it that when a kid asks a simple question about a program that uses a random function, he will be blasted to kingdom come for using the word "randint"? There are a few posts with this particular example on the site. its crazyiness! if I ask a simple question regarding randint, and the first 5 replies are all about "don't use randint, use Rand.Int(). it is much better for several reasons, including (insert complex crap in here)"

This is the hard part, pointing the user in question in the right direction, while not discouraging them. If this is put in a positive way, then I see no problem with it.

Something like...

Quote:

OMG STFU n00b i r use tihs!

Just might discourage somebody.

Hackmaster wrote:

in summary (if you are still reading) I think that compsci needs to step back and look at who they are talking to before they go into crazy detail about something that is purely for good practice. this site can be shared by not just the academics, but the learners, too. This isn't something everyone does. as a matter of fact, I think that there are only a few.

Academics crave learning. Also, I would have to argue that many users here have been down that path. They simply want users to learn properly the first time around, instead of repeating themselves. Though I would have to argue myself again, saying that making mistakes is a good way to learn. So, I agree to disagree with myself.

Hackmaster wrote:

out of those few that are making it hard to learn, they may be killing the beginning of bill gates V2.

If you had replaced "Bill Gates" with another name, I might see your point .

Hackmaster wrote:

If you are still reading, I thank you for listening to me ramble, I ask you to give me an opinion: is compsci geared to much towards experience?

It seems as though in the early days, not much content was on here. Now there is plenty. There is the experience of others from which new users can read about should they choose to search. I would have to say it's not geared towards experience fully, but there is plenty of experiences of others to read about and learn from.

[wtd]

Indeed, providing direction without discouraging is an often difficult tightrope to walk.

Part of the difficulty lies in different perspectives. For the student struggling to finish a project, programming is often simply a means to an end. They want a good grade in an elective class, so they need a solution that works, and they need it fast.

The perspective taken by those the original poster is complaining about, however, is that the purpose of such projects is learning. Having something that works is not nearly so important as understanding why it works, and how it could be better. The end result of such an understanding, happily, is that it leads to being better at getting a working solution.

[Clayton]

Hackmaster wrote:

What is holding people back is the experience factor. what if they just started a month ago? or even 2 months? what if they just want a non complicated answer? Eric, (and anyone else) should check out my post in general discussion. it's titled "What is Compsci.ca?" and it deals with this issue. after you have read that, then we'll have this discussion.

Taken from a post in [Turing Help]

The time that they started is not affecting them in how they learn. It's affecting them of what they already know. This is especially true here, were there are inumerable sources of information, capable of teaching students the accepted way of doing things. Note that I did not say the correct way of doing things, as there is no such thing as correct in programming (well there is but there isn't), and you should generally try to stick with accepted, or standardized methods of doing things when coding.