I developed the following ideas about how to teach computer programming during a recent conversation with Daniel Rocco, a professor at the University of West Georgia, and Georgia Tech grad student Derek Richardson, and I wanted to expand on the ideas here on my blog. I have been heavily influenced by reading Greg Wilson, and, for all I know, he or someone else may have already put these ideas together into something like the outline below.

The first day of class

To teach computer programming, a professor ought to stride into the room on the semester’s first day, explain that a computer program is a text file full of instructions for the computer to follow, and then proceed to check out an example from version control. His desktop should be displayed on a big screen in front of the class. He should read through the example program with them, discuss it — it should be a Python program that does something requiring two or three dozen lines, like opening a window and displaying the message, “Hello, world!” — and then run it. He should demonstrate how to edit the program so that it prints something else instead (perhaps “Hello, professor!”), run the altered version for them, and, finally, check the modified program into version control.

The class now has the tools they need to complete their first assignment. The students are told that a version-control repository has been created for each of them; that they have each been subscribed to their repository’s email notification list; and that, upon returning home from class, their email inbox will already hold a message informing them that their first assignment — the “Hello, world!” program itself — has been checked into their repository by the course software. By the next class period they are to have checked the assignment out, altered it so that it prints “Hello” followed by their own name, and submitted the assignment by checking the program back in.

Entertainment wants only to satisfy its audience;
but Art will teach us new desires.

(Penned after pondering the talk that Dana Gioia gave at Oxbridge 2008)