Questions to ask to ensure someone understands programming? (and iOS)
- by Stephen J
So, I've been tutoring my friend for 2 years. Most people learn programming on their own in 3-6 months, (sans algorithms). It's confusing 'cause he'll run anywhere I tell him to, understands how to read C and C++ honestly better than the average college student, and he'll modify and repeat anything I do... but for the love of god he doesn't move on to new things and he still has test anxiety.
I've recently realized he's copied and toyed with existing, but not once gained an understanding of why. I was under the impression he was learning fast because he could write it, but when you say "Make a function that takes an NSString" and he says "How?" and I say "The same way you make ANY function that takes any parameter, NSString is just a type like int" and all I hear is "No, it's an NSString, it's a special thing." and we get into an arguing match 'cause I'm like "It's just a class like any other class, you've used them for months now" and blah...
I've subconsciously avoided comprehension questions because of this. Anyway, if you have him copy a program and say "Just initialize it" "Where?" "I don't care, didLoad or initWithCoder or Awake from nib, anywhere it gets initialized" and "No, it has to be exactly where you had it!" "No it doesn't!"
I'm sick of this, but he won't give up. So I'm done avoiding these yelling matches and becoming a sadist from now on. I would like some help in finding questions to ask him that force him to understand what he's doing.
I'd like some help and any resources I can find. CQuestions looked like a good site, but now I need some iPhone stuff.
For example:
*What do properties do? How are they changed? How do you change the name of the getter?
*Why are Booleans inefficent? What advantage does int have over a boolean and how does the bit-shift operator help?
*What does Copy do to a string?
*What's the difference between a view controller and a uiview?
*Write a program from memory that displays blah on screen, and flashes each view one by one.
From beginner up to intermediate, hobbyist with some algebra at most. I'm just looking for resources to work with. I left in backstory so you know to "twist" the questions so he doesn't know he's supposed to init a variable here or there, but has to figure it out, and learn why it goes "here" or that "anywhere is fine as long as it's". Sample programs, anything.
I'm relatively open about this because, being a programmer, I seriously doubt he's the only one who has this issue. I'd like to know how others have overcome similar. What made things "click"? for you?
Did you have a hard time finding answers on Google, and how did you learn a better way to find what you were looking for? (He's so exact, he'll search for how to write a checkers program with color X and Y inside a uiview, as his search string, instead of breaking it up into components, I need help with that too, and believe it is related).
This type of problem has to remind one of us of someone they know.
So, Exercises to force them to think? Ways we overcame this thing in the past?
I greatly appreciate any help.
