[IAEP] learning programming from a book (was: Sugar Digest 2015-04-28)

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr.]

Last week, Walter Bender wrote:
> [...] Perhaps the succinct way I can express my doubts is to assert that
> no one has ever learned to program from reading a book (or attending
> a MOOC). You can only learn to program by programming.

To which I made this private comment, thinking it would be offtopic
here:

> I claim to have learned programming from a book in that I taught myself
> BASIC and 8080 assembly language from a few magazines that I bought in
> 1978/1979 and wrote a bunch of programs on paper. I first had access to
> a computer with BASIC in 1980 and a terminal into which I could type
> 8080 machine language in hex in 1981. Same thing for C, LISP and
> Smalltalk - I had to create my own compilers/interpreters to run the
> programs I had previously written on paper.
>
> To be fair, I got a "computer" from Radio Shack in 1975 (when I was 13
> years old) that could be "programmed" with wires like in a protoboard.
> It had 10 switches and 10 lamps and was actually a neat idea for a an
> educational toy. And in 1976 I got a programmable calculator from Texas
> Instruments that could have 30 very primitive steps. So if someone would
> prefer to consider that I first learned to program by programming before
> I learned it from a book, I would have to respect that opinion.
>
> The reason I wrote this is that my experience is probably rare, but
> surely not unique. So if you use this argument you might find someone in
> the audience contradicting you, which would be a pity since your
> complaint about the "hole in the wall" thing is perfectly valid.

But Walter Bender replied:
> You make a very good point. Your situation is far from unique and echos the
>  experience of some of the best hackers I know. But even in your description
>  of your experience, I think the book was serving more as a reference
>  and that your learning was from doing. That said, I kick around the number 7%
>  -- 7% will be successful regardless. They are sufficiently self-motivated
>  that they will seize any opportunity. You are one of the 7%.
>
> Please share your observations with the iaep and devel lists. Would be
> good to expand the discussion.

When I started working on a children's computer back in 1983 it was the
first time I gave my experience with schools any thought and it became
obvious that I had not been a typical student. That meant that I
couldn't design for myself, but instead had to understand what education
was like for other people.

Alan Kay once wrote that when you teach a group of children something
none of them have experienced before, about 10% of them learn so easily
that it is hard to believe they weren't already experts. Another 10%
never quite get it no matter what you do. He said that education is
about the remaining 80%.

-- Jecel