programming

Permalink

I've even heard of people screen-recording them programming, and then watching later, to have an external view of how they spend their time, because in the moment you can't evaluate very well. Yet people don't regularly do this. There is no market where I can easily pay people to watch me talk, program, choose clothes, etc, and give me feedback.


Permalink

“N years of experience” requirements are unnecessary gatekeeping. Smart people can pick up anything quickly, and diverse perspectives are valuable.


Permalink

Demarco and Lister, in their famous Coding War Games experiment, demonstrated just this - the best predictor of quality for programmers, they found, was not years of experience or salary but rather how quiet their office environment was.


Permalink

Something I taught my 11 yo today: Some amount of programming consists of copying and pasting lines you've already written, and then changing a few parameters. But the better the language, the less of this you do.


Permalink

When teaching kids to program, it's good if you're doing something too, instead of standing over them, so they can experiment (which is an important part of programming). But you can't be doing anything uninterruptible. Sorting Lego is perfect.


Permalink

Don't worry about kids acquiring bad programming habits when they're first learning. The only habit that matters is the habit of programming. Tidiness can come later. Enthusiasm can't.