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• How would you explain your job to a 5-year old?

  - by Canavar

  Sometimes it's difficult to define programming to people. Especially too old or too young people can not understand what I do to earn money. They think that I repair computers, or they want to think that I (as an engineer) build computers at work. :) It's really hard to tell people that you produce something they can't touch. Here is a funny question, how would you explain your job to a 5-year-old?

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• IF-block brackets: best practice

  - by MasterPeter

  I am preparing a short tutorial for level 1 uni students learning JavaScript basics. The task is to validate a phone number. The number must not contain non-digits and must be 14 digits long or less. The following code excerpt is what I came up with and I would like to make it as readable as possible. if ( //set of rules for invalid phone number phoneNumber.length == 0 //empty || phoneNumber.length > 14 //too long || /\D/.test(phoneNumber) //contains non-digits ) { setMessageText(invalid); } else { setMessageText(valid); } A simple question I can not quite answer myself and would like to hear your opinions on: How to position the surrounding (outermost) brackets? It's hard to see the difference between a normal and a curly bracket. Do you usually put the last ) on the same line as the last condition? Do you keep the first opening ( on a line by itself? Do you wrap each individual sub-condition in brackets too? Do you align horizontally the first ( with the last ), or do you place the last ) in the same column as the if? Do you keep ) { on a separate line or you place the last ) on the same line with the last sub-condition and then place the opening { on a new line? Or do you just put the ) { on the same line as the last sub-condition? Community wiki.

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• How can I teach a know-it-all beginner programmer?

  - by Liran Orevi

  I need to teach a teenage beginner programmer (private tutoring style). The problem is that despite their poor knowledge and skills, they are sure of their abilities, to the point where I find it hard to teach them "better ways". What's the best way to tackle this? Just to be clear what I'm talking about: Constantly changing between tools/IDEs/libraries when it's tough. Blind certainty that really bad designs are really very good. Copying and pasting from the Internet, without understanding the code, and "marking" it as a project.

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• What is better for a student programming in C++ to learn for writing GUI: C# vs QT?

  - by flashnik

  I'm a teacher(instructor) of CS in the university. The course is based on Cormen and Knuth and students program algorithms in C++. But sometimes it is good to show how an algorithm works or just a result of task through GUI. Also in my opinion it's very imporant to be able to write full programs. They will have courses concerning GUI but a three years, later, in fact, before graduatuion. I think that they should be able to write simple GUI applications earlier. So I want to teach them it. How do you think, what is more useful for them to learn: programming GUI with QT or writing GUI in C# and calling unmanaged C++ library?

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• Career day in kindergarten

  - by Péter Török

  I was invited to the kindergarten group of my elder daughter to talk and answer the kids' questions about my profession. There are 26 kids of age 4-6 in the group, plus 3 teachers who are fairly scared of anything related to programming and IT themselves, but bold enough to learn new tricks. I would have about 20-30 minutes, without projector or anything. They have an old computer though, which by its look may be a 486, and I am not even sure if it's functioning. My research turned up excellent earlier threads, with lots of good tips: How would you explain your job to a 5-year old? Career Day: how do I make “computer programmer” sound cool to 8 year olds? What things can I teach a group of children about programming in one day? My situation is different from each of the above though: the latter ones are concerned with older children, while the first one is about talking to a single kid (or elder person)—a group of 20 is a whole different challenge. How can I teach the kids and their teachers about programming in a fun way?

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• What are some exciting, fun, and educational Computer Science activities for students?

  - by Nixuz

  I am a volunteer for Let's Talk Science, an organization which places science graduate students into elementary school and high school classrooms to present short, fun, yet educational demonstrations or experiments related to their particular field. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology have an abundance of such demonstrations, however as a computer scientist, I have no good ideas of what I can present to these students which will demonstrate computer programming and computers in an understandable yet inspiring way in only a 1 - 3 hour presentation. So I am turning to SO for suggestions. Thanks. Presentation Requirements Length: 1 - 3 hours. Explainable in a single sitting. Captivates elementary school and high school audiences. Educational. Please Note Computer's are available at the schools. Please, indicate the suitable age range for your suggestion in your answer.

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• What should be taught in a "Fundamentals of programming" course at university?

  - by Dervin Thunk

  I have started a new question (see here), because I think the topic is of importance in a more general form. The question is now: If you were a professor at a Computer Science Dept. in some university, what would make it into your course? This is a programming course, second term, first year computer science/computer engineering. Remember you have a limited amount of time, and students are of different levels of competence, and some may be scientists, but some will also go on to be programmers in companies of different kinds. You have to cater to all. Bonus: What language? (Although see this question for my current thoughts about this...) Maybe you want to attach a course outline from some university? See here for an even more general question about this. Answer: I can't really summarize this post... I guess it was too subjective. However, it looks like we have to cover the history of computing up to a certain extent, computer architecture (memory, registers, whatever), C, and finally some basic algos and data structures in a problem solving fashion. This will be the bare bones of the course. Thanks all. I will accept the most voted up answer to close the thread, as it should be done.

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• Which LOGO implementation?

  - by Lukasz Lew

  I want to show my young cousin (12) programming. I think that LOGO is a good start. Which implementation should I use? (windows)

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• Coding issue in the 3D Buzz Hyperion tutorial.I am work

  - by Geno

  I'm following along with the tutorial. And we are currently coding the Item class. I am using the 2008 edition, while the tutorial uses 2005. The code I am having issue with is: public string Weight { get { return weight; } set { weight = value; } } earlier in the code, we had: private int Weight = 1; as you can see, they are both different variables, int, and string. I'm doing exactly as the tutorial shows, on mine, I get a conversion error, whereas in the tutorial, there are no errors, why is this? I'm doing exactly what the video shows.

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• How can I help fellow students struggling in programming classes?

  - by David Barry

  I'm a computer science student finishing up my second semester of programming classes. I've enjoyed them quite a bit, and learned a lot, but it seems other students are struggling with the concepts and assignments more than I am. When an assignment is due, the inevitable group email comes out the day or two before with people needing some help either with a specific part of the problem, or sometimes people just seem to have a hard time knowing where to start. I'd really like to be able to help out, but I have a hard time thinking of the right way to give them help without giving them the answer. When I'm having trouble understanding a concept, a code snippet can go along way to helping me, but at the same time if it makes a lot of sense, it can be difficult to think of another way to go about it. Plus the Academic Integrity section of each assignment is always looming overhead warning against sharing code with others. I've tried using pseudo code to help give others an idea on program flow, leaving them to figure out how to implement certain aspects of it, but I didn't get too much feedback and don't know how much it actually helped them out, or if it just confused them further. So I'm basically looking to see if anyone has experience with this, or good ways that I can help out other students to nudge them in the right direction or help them think about the problem in the right way.

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• How difficult is it for an old-school programmer to pick up an FPGA kit and make something useful wi

  - by JUST MY correct OPINION

  I'm an old, old, old coder. (How old? I've used paper tape in anger.) I've programmed in a lot of languages and under a lot of paradigms (spaghetti, structured, object-oriented, functional and a smattering of logical). I'm getting bored. FPGAs look interesting to me. I have the crazy notion of resurrecting some of the ancient hardware I worked on in the days using FPGAs. I know this can be done because I've seen PDP-10 and PDP-11 implementations in FPGAs. I'd like to do the same for a few machines that are perhaps not as popular as those two, however. While I am an old, old coder, what I am not is an electronics or computer systems engineer. I'll be learning from scratch if I go down this path. My question, therefore, is two-fold: How difficult will it be for this old dinosaur to pick up and learn FPGAs to the point that interesting (not necessarily practical -- more from a hobbyist perspective) projects can be made? What should I start with learning-wise to go down this path? I know where to get FPGA kits, but I haven't found anything like "FPGAs for Complete Dinosaurs" yet anywhere out there.

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• How do Arrays work in C#?

  - by Slateboard

  I know that they are used to store data, but I have a difficult time understanding exactly how to use them in a program. In addition, I found this site with a tetris clone tutorial (the actual tutorial is missing). It uses arrays, but I can't really make sense of how it works. Here's an example of the code - public int[, ,] TShape = new int[4, 4, 2] { {{1, 0}, {0, 1}, {1, 1}, {2, 1}}, {{1, 0}, {0, 1}, {1, 1}, {1, 2}}, {{0, 0}, {1, 0}, {2, 0}, {1, 1}}, {{0, 0}, {0, 1}, {1, 1}, {0, 2}}}; Could it be that I'm looking too hard into this, or perhaps there's something I'm not grasping about it?

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• Three most critical programming concepts

  - by Todd

  I know this has probably been asked in one form or fashion but I wanted to pose it once again within the context of my situation (and probably others here @ SO). I made a career change to Software Engineering some time ago without having an undergrad or grad degree in CS. I've supplemented my undergrad and grad studies in business with programming courses (VB, Java,C, C#) but never performed academic coursework in the other related disciplines (algorithms, design patterns, discrete math, etc.)...just mostly self-study. I know there are several of you who have either performed interviews and/or made hiring decisions. Given recent trends in demand, what would you say are the three most essential Comp Sci concepts that a developer should have a solid grasp of outside of language syntax? For example, I've seen blog posts of the "Absolute minimum X that every programmer must know" variety...that's what I'm looking for. Again if it's truly a redundancy please feel free to close; my feelings won't be hurt. (Closest ones I could find were http://stackoverflow.com/questions/164048/basic-programming-algorithmic-concepts- which was geared towards a true beginner, and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/648595/essential-areas-of-knowledge-which I didn't feel was concrete enough). Thanks in advance all! T.

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• How to make a fun effective programming meetup that benefits both beginners and advanced coders.

  - by adam

  If you could organise your own programming meetup how would you organise the session so that people had fun learnt lots were able to participate despite their level. what kinds of topics, activities, challenges etc would you include (not all in one session but in general) how would you handle differing levels? what do you think are some important things to learn, to achieve? Any input is greatly appreciated. Im not sure how Id mark the best answer, perhaps leave it to the community to vote for it.

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• What should I tell kids about how great it is to be a programmer?

  - by Sara Chipps

  I am putting a presentation together. I thought about illustrating with websites like Facebook, and MySpace. Does anyone have children around that age that could tell me what they are into? How to hold their attention? Ways to illustrate what we do? Get them interested? Your ideas are greatly appreciated, I really want to be able to convey how fun this is :). I don't have access to a digital projector... which really stinks. I do have access to an old transparency overhead, though. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/207278/career-day-how-do-i-make-computer-programmer-sound-cool-to-8-year-olds

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• What version-control system is most trivial to set up and use for toy projects?

  - by Norman Ramsey

  I teach the third required intro course in a CS department. One of my homework assignments asks students to speed up code they have written for a previous assignment. Factor-of-ten speedups are routine; factors of 100 or 1000 are not unheard of. (For a factor of 1000 speedup you have to have made rookie mistakes with malloc().) Programs are improved by a sequence is small changes. I ask students to record and describe each change and the resulting improvement. While you're improving a program it is also possible to break it. Wouldn't it be nice to back out? You can see where I'm going with this: my students would benefit enormously from version control. But there are some caveats: Our computing environment is locked down. Anything that depends on a central repository is suspect. Our students are incredibly overloaded. Not just classes but jobs, sports, music, you name it. For them to use a new tool it has to be incredibly easy and have obvious benefits. Our students do most work in pairs. Getting bits back and forth between accounts is problematic. Could this problem also be solved by distributed version control? Complexity is the enemy. I know setting up a CVS repository is too baffling---I myself still have trouble because I only do it once a year. I'm told SVN is even harder. Here are my comments on existing systems: I think central version control (CVS or SVN) is ruled out because our students don't have the administrative privileges needed to make a repository that they can share with one other student. (We are stuck with Unix file permissions.) Also, setup on CVS or SVN is too hard. darcs is way easy to set up, but it's not obvious how you share things. darcs send (to send patches by email) seems promising but it's not clear how to set it up. The introductory documentation for git is not for beginners. Like CVS setup, it's something I myself have trouble with. I'm soliciting suggestions for what source-control to use with beginning students. I suspect we can find resources to put a thin veneer over an existing system and to simplify existing documentation. We probably don't have resources to write new documentation. So, what's really easy to setup, commit, revert, and share changes with a partner but does not have to be easy to merge or to work at scale? A key constraint is that programming pairs have to be able to share work with each other and only each other, and pairs change every week. Our infrastructure is Linux, Solaris, and Windows with a netapp filer. I doubt my IT staff wants to create a Unix group for each pair of students. Is there an easier solution I've overlooked? (Thanks for the accepted answer, which beats the others on account of its excellent reference to Git Magic as well as the helpful comments.)

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• What is a good metaphor for c memory management?

  - by fsmc

  I'm trying to find a good metaphor to explain memory allocation, initialization and freeing in c to a non technical audience. I've heard pass-by-reference/value talked about quite well with postal service usage, but not so much for allocation/deallocation. So for I've thought about using the idea of renting a space might work, but I wonder if the SO crew can provide something better.

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• What things can I teach a group of children about programming in one day?

  - by Rich Bradshaw

  I'm running a day for 30 kids aged 11-18 about computer game programming. They have all opted to do it, but they have no experience at all of programming. My main aim is for them to learn a few things: programming is hard/challenging programming is something they can learn to do being a computer games programmer != playing games all day a little more insight into how games actually work I'd thought of splitting them into two groups, of younger/less experience and older/more experience, then doing slightly different things. I'd considered showing them Scratch, Game Maker, before showing them the basics of Python and getting them to write a simple text based game (perhaps something like, computer picks a random number, you have to guess it in as few guesses as possible, computer says higher/lower for each guess). Does anyone have any ideas of things to do/show them/ways to teach them?

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• Choose Your Own Adventure : BASIC Programming

  - by theraccoonbear

  Hopefully this isn't considered too off-topic, but I guess we'll see. I'd love to find and frame a copy of this book. Years ago, in my pre-teen years, I remember reading a lot of CYOA books, and one in particular stands out in my mind as the book that started me down the path of becoming a programmer. The details are fuzzy, but what I remember was that the story involved a programmer who was held captive somewhere and was trying to escape. IIRC, each section or chapter had a short BASIC program you could could type into your computer to simulate something from the story. The one that stands out most in my mind was a very simplistic animation made with pipes, pluses, and dashes that "looked" like a metal grate that opened (sliding upward). I realize this is pretty scant information to go on, but I suspect that anyone else who read the book would immediately remember it. Maybe not, I guess we'll see. Again, my apologies if this is too far off-topic for S.O.

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• Should I Teach My Son Programming? What approaches should I take? [closed]

  - by DaveDev

  I was wondering if it's a good idea to teach object oriented programming to my son? I was never really good at math as a kid, but I think since I've started programming it's given me a greater ability to understand math by being better able to visualise relationships between abstract models. I thought it might give him a better advantage in learning & applying logical & mathematical concepts throughout his life if he was able to take advantage of the tools available to programmers. what would be the best programming fields, techniques and/or concepts? What approach should I take? what concepts should I avoid? what fields of mathematics would he find this benfits him most? He's only 2 now so it wouldn't be for another few years before I do this, (and even at that, only from a very high level point of view). I thought I'd put it to the programming community and see what you guys thought? Possible Duplicate: What are some recommended programming resources for pre-teens?

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• So my girlfriend wants to learn to program [closed]

  - by vanstee

  Possible Duplicate: What programming language should be taught in Computer Science 101? My girlfriend hates feeling completely out of the loop when my friends and I talk about anything related to computers, so she asked me to teach her how to program. I'm pretty happy she asked, but I want to be able to teach her enough to know the basics without her completely losing interest or getting too frustrated. She is a very smart girl, probably smarter than me, but her computer related skills are pretty minimal. What language should I teach her and why?

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• Probability Selector

  For when you really do need randomness Probability - Math - Event - Teaching Resources - Past Events

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• Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

  - by Ben Griswold

  You’re familiar with O’Reilly’s brilliant Head First Series, right?  Great.  Then you know how every book begins with an explanation of the Head First teaching style and you know the teaching format which Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates developed is based on research in cognitive science, neurobiology and educational psychology and it’s all about making learning visual and conversational and attractive and emotional and it’s highly effective.  Anyway, it’s a great series and you should read every last one of the books. Moving on… I’ve been wanting to learn more about Ruby and Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby has been on my reading list for a while and there was talk about cartoon foxes and other silliness and I figured Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby probably takes the same unorthodox teaching style as the Head First books – and that’s great – so I read the book, in piecemeal, over the last couple of weeks and, well, I figured wrong. Now having read the book, here’s my take on Why’s (Poignant) Guide – it’s very creative and clever and it does a darn good job of introducing one to Ruby.  If you’re interested in Ruby or simply interested, the online book is worth your time.  If you’re thinking (like me) that cartoon foxes will be doing the teaching, that’s simple not the case.  However, the cartoons and the random stories in the sidebar may serve a purpose. Unlike the Head First books where images and captions are used to further explain the teachings, the cartoons and stories in Why’s Guide serve as intermission and offer your brain a brief moment of rest before the next Ruby concept is explained.  It’s not a bad strategy, but definitely not as effective as the Head First techniques.  

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• A training world nugget for being taught by the best

  - by Testas

  June represents an exciting time for the SQL Server community with events all over the country in the next few months and there is plenty of knowledge to be gained from willing speakers enthusiastically sharing their knowledge. Furthermore, Paul Randall and Kimberley Trip will be conducting their highly recommended immersion events at London Heathrow in June.There are other big names within SQL Server that will be teaching this year. The company I used to work for, QA, has excellent trainers teaching SQL Server who I would always recommend. Occasionally a big name speaker will be take a course, unknowingly to the community. Solid Quality Mentors is such a company where their staff will teach at QA offices from time to time. And I know from conversation with Itzik Ben-Gan that he will be teaching Advanced TSQL within QA offices in London during the week of Oct 3-7. A link to the course details can be found here.http://www.qa.com/training-courses/technical-it-training/microsoft/microsoft-sql-server/microsoft-sql-server-2008-and-r2/advanced-t-sql-querying,-programming-and-tuning-for-sql-server-2005--2008So if you want to be taught by the best experts, consider checking www.QA.com for their advanced SQL courses, you could find yourself being taught by the best in the business in their field.Chris  

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• What presentation software suits my needs?

  - by claws

  Background: I'm teaching biology to 12th grade students. The syllabus I'm teaching is huge. I mean literally, very huge. There is a lot for students to remember. There are no less than 1000 facts (weird names, dates etc) for students to remember. They'll have to remember all of them, they don't have a choice. The notes I compiled for their learning itself is upto 80 printed pages(Just the bullet outline & facts). That's just one chapter. We have 34 chapters. Also my students are very hardworking, they study upto 8-10hrs per day (Yeah! we are from India :). So, I want to ensure maximum retaining by the students at each and every stage (Teaching & Learning). I'm trying to as many memory training techniques as possible. I'm trying to incorporate, mnemonics, strong visual aids (pictures, 3D-animations, real videos etc.), spaced repetition etc. I think MS powerpoint is not suitable for my needs: There are about 200 slides per chapter. Its very easy for students to get lost while teaching. Because the problem with powerpoint is that it gives facts (as bullets) but it doesn't exploit the association & organization (Concept Map) of the content, which helps students learn quickly. I found an amazing software called XMind. You can see the screenshot here. Problem is that it is not as powerpoint in terms of powerpoint. This software can be used for just for concept maps. In the above screenshot, each topic occupies a single slide. I have an Image/picture(Detailed huge picture) and about 5-10 bullet points and probably a video or an animation of somethings. And this XMind is not good at presenting, in terms that it doesn't allow me to set what to present after what. I want to present a top down view, with a slide for each topic. PS: I Don't like prezi.com. I tried but it simply is too confusing for my students. It zooms here and there. I didn't tried it but I've seen few presentations.

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