From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2005-10-15T10:19:13+09:00
Subject: Re: my mother wants to code?

On Oct 14, 2005, at 7:16 PM, Scott Ellsworth wrote:

> Not really - it forces them to learn the language, the command  
> line, and
> the make/text editor functionality, instead of the language and the  
> IDE.

...

> With something like IDEA, I can ask for all of the usages of a method.

...

> As an example, I would rather that a student who has made a syntax  
> error
> be shown the file and line they screwed up, than be given a line  
> number
> and file name.  With the wrong code right in front of them, they  
> can fix
> it quickly, and move on.

irb seems a promising option here.  Feedback is instantaneous in a,  
"What if I say this?," style. irb can respond with, "Then I would say  
this," or, "Error."

You don't need to learn external utilities here, though I realize you  
lose out on some text editor/IDE niceties.  Still, irb can support  
tab completion, which may be enough at this stage.

Want to examine methods or a class hierarchy?  Use Ruby's  
reflection.  That means you're learning even more Ruby, to help  
yourself.  The Pickaxe2 also gives an ri() method you can define in  
your .irbrc.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but this seems to address most of  
your concerns.

> I would not want to teach a newbie programmer regexes, unless they  
> were learning Perl or Ruby where they are a core language skill.

I hear this complaint often and I can name good programmer that are  
honestly scared of regular expressions.  I think anyone who utters  
such a thing should have to take James's Regexp in an Evening  
course.  ;)

I've taught my wife a little Perl scripting, to help her at work.   
Part of that was a single evening of regular expressions.   
Programming is hard for her, and she just generally doesn't seem  
disposed to it; however, she picked up regular expression no problem  
and even seems to like using them.  I really just taught her the  
basics and gave her a one page "cheat sheet," so I can't much tell  
you my secret, but it sure seems to work.  I do know she keeps the  
cheat sheet by her monitor at work, so maybe that's part of it.

Anyway, I think you guys just had the wrong teacher for this one.  ;)

James Edward Gray II