I teach coding. Here are some of my insights:
— Remove the instrumental barriers first. I start with teaching the basics of UNIX shell, navigating the file system, processes, editing files etc. Students will move much faster if they do not stumble on basics.
— Continue with the notion of system libraries, dependencies and teach how to use system package managers to install stuff.
— Explain what APIs are and teach how to call them manually for some useful results. E.g. use curl and Twilio API to make phone calls.
— Write simple scripts: call multiple API endpoints, use variables to store intermediate results, use simple loops. I hate bash, though, so any other language will do.
— The lowest-level API is machine code / CPU instructions. Write simple assembler code to calculate something, translate it to ASCII string (explain how symbols are encoded in ASCII and Unicode/UTF-8), and package it to the boot sector / boot it via QEMU.
— Move to C, learn about data types, arrays, pointers, etc. Use some fancy GUI library for additional immediate gratification.
— Remove the instrumental barriers first. I start with teaching the basics of UNIX shell, navigating the file system, processes, editing files etc. Students will move much faster if they do not stumble on basics.
— Continue with the notion of system libraries, dependencies and teach how to use system package managers to install stuff.
— Explain what APIs are and teach how to call them manually for some useful results. E.g. use curl and Twilio API to make phone calls.
— Write simple scripts: call multiple API endpoints, use variables to store intermediate results, use simple loops. I hate bash, though, so any other language will do.
— The lowest-level API is machine code / CPU instructions. Write simple assembler code to calculate something, translate it to ASCII string (explain how symbols are encoded in ASCII and Unicode/UTF-8), and package it to the boot sector / boot it via QEMU.
— Move to C, learn about data types, arrays, pointers, etc. Use some fancy GUI library for additional immediate gratification.