From: James Britt <jamesUNDERBARb@...>
Date: 2005-02-14T11:55:50+09:00
Subject: Re: Printing why's (poignant) guide to ruby

Anders Engstr�m wrote:
> 
> 
> That '\n' is pretty confusing for a newbie.

How do you know that?

I'd be interested in any good sources that detail the sort of things 
different types of newbies find troublesome or confusing.

Offhand, I don't quite see that "\n" would be such a problem given a 
reasonably succinct explanation.  My own experience with teaching 
programming newbies suggests that most of them are comfortable with 
fairly straight-forward edicts (e.g., "That's just how you tell the 
computer to start writing to a new line").

It's the more abstract stuff (e.g., blocks, high-order functions, even 
the notion of a variable) that spooks them.

James