G+_Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Folks, First, I want to say thank you for all the positive emails, comments, tweets and messages we’ve received about “Coding 101” – Shannon and I have been planning this for a while and it’s nice to see it come to fruition. As with any new show, there will be plenty of tweaks and pivots to come, but we’re very happy with the trajectory of the show. As you might imagine, along with the positive vibes, we've received our share of criticism (mostly constructive, some… not so much) from listeners who have a better way for us to teach coding. We're very appreciative of the energy and the passion, and we'll try to do our best to integrate that criticism into future modules. The biggest challenge that we face is that we’re trying to create a show that is informative for beginners, useful for intermediate programmers, and bearable for advanced coders… all while making it entertaining enough for all three groups to enjoy. The issues that we run into are: 1. How do we create a show that is simple enough for a beginner, but "juicy" enough for those who already have a programming background? 2. How do we cram a 90-minute lesson into a 45-minute show? 3. How do we structure a WEEKLY lesson plan for something that should be learned on a DAILY basis? 4. How do we do ALL of that without real-time feedback from our "students" 5. How do we encourage listeners to tinker and seek out code knowledge outside of the show? What you will see each week is a show format that Shannon and I have created to address those issues. Segment 1 will be Shannon covering feedback from the audience and rehashing the basic lessons of the previous week. Segment 2 will be me talking about a high-level topic. Segment 3 will be our guest coding expert giving us a code example. The reason why we’ve chosen the order of topics as we have is because we want to encourage people to poke around in the code. We CAN’T be a step-by-step programming course because that’s not who we are… but we CAN entice people to research the “black box” portions of the code. We're going to teach basic information, but we're also going to wrap that information in code examples that more advanced users can play with. We're starting with basic concepts, but we’re not going to give them ALL the basic concepts before we start programming. (Otherwise we'd be in week 10 before you would even SEE code.) Thanks for the words of encouragement, and please keep the critique coming. This is an experiment for us and I hope that you’ll see us through. In other words... stay tabbed! Peace, Padre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Justin Phebey Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 "We CAN'T be a step-by-step programming course because that's not who we are..." but you don't mind knocking everyone else that produce online tutorials. You could do a lot worse than check out some of your competition that your so keen to run down such as thenewboston YouTube channel for a wealth of great content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jani Turunen Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 you guys are doing great Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Nick Salerni Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ As a Computer Science student, I would be more than happy to give some advice on how to best structure lessons and how to create lessons for both beginner and advanced programmers :) Great show so far, keep up the great work!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Posted February 1, 2014 Author Share Posted February 1, 2014 Justin Phebey I'm not sure why you're so angry. We don't run down anybody's content. -- and if you're just shilling for another YouTube channel, please stop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Tone Four Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Responding to negative comments is just as bad as writing them for anyone coming along to see what's going on. Please everyone, if the criticism isn't constructive just ignore the person completely. I just wanted to say hi to you all - i really enjoyed the second show. I downloaded VSE, even installed 8.1 to a VM and created a G+ account. I've been following TWiT for a long time and happy to be part of this community. Thank you Shannon and Robert, great stuff - wish Iyaz was with us too. I'm just about to look for show 1 and watch that too. Fantastic show - loved it. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Shannon Morse Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Thanks Nick Salerni! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Shannon Morse Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Tone Four hello and welcome :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_João Pena Gil Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Hey Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ , great job on these first two episodes. I'm just wondering what you're gonna do on episode 20 or something when you're all done with variables and loops and functions and classes and all the basic stuff. Will you start beefing it up with more advanced stuff like graph structures and Dijkstra algorithms, or just switch to another language and start over? I'm a huge fan of TWIET, thanks for all your work on the TWiT network. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Shannon Morse Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 João Pena Gil we will do about 6-8 weeks per language for starters, then go back and learn more advanced stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_João Pena Gil Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 Shannon Morse that sounds great, best of luck to you both on the new show and keep up the good work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Tim Young Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 I love the show too! While I'm a Mac guy, and C# isn't my first choice for programming, the show is inspiring me to consider going back to my programming roots and find a new language to learn. Great job, Father & Snubs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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