programming basics?

[Gabriela]

On friday we have some time to teach about the things you can do with
code. I guess we are gonna explain there what a program is. I think on
friday just before going into ruby we need to explain what a variable
is and that kind of stuff. Should I add that to the slides that I'm
getting with the exercises from tryruby.org ? There is some stuff
about it in the railsbridge slides:
http://railsbridge.github.com/workshop/programming_intro.html#0

gaba

[Gabriela]

This two wiki pages have a perfect list what to show to non-programmers:

http://www.wiki.devchix.com/index.php?title=Beginners_guide_to_programming
http://www.wiki.devchix.com/index.php?title=Programming_intro

I'm just wondering if this is gonna be on friday or on saturday morning.

[Sam Livingston-Gray]

If it seems appropriate, feel free to show [1] and [2] as an example
of what (at least two) programmers do for fun to solve problems in the
real world (or, at least, the physical one).

It's not quite the five-line script that Reid was talking about last
night, but it's still very much in the "casual throwaway project"
category. (I'm actually getting together with my coworker this
weekend to ride the high-scoring route he's found, and might update
this with some further notes after that.)

-Sam

[1] https://github.com/geeksam/ladds_graph
[2] https://github.com/mildavw/ladds

[Gabriela]

Last night we decided on a schedule for the workshops. The idea is to
show on Friday what cool things can be done with code. And on Saturday
do a ruby basic introduction based on the material we have from
tryruby.org

Proposed schedule:

FRIDAY

6-6:30 pm: Intros / get-to-know-you
6:30-7 pm: Cool things to do with code
7:00-9 pm: Install fest / Socializing

SATURDAY

9:00 - doors open.
9:30- 9:45 - Re-introductions
9:45-11:30 - Ruby basics
11:30-12:00 - Koans intro
12:00- 1:00 LUNCH
1:00 - 4:30 Rails
4:30 - 5:00 What's next
-fin

[Addie Beseda]

I think the idea is less to talk about coding concepts and more about the end result, i.e., "You may not have realized it, but this is coding."  But I also see how pulling away the curtain and exposing a bit of "this is coding" might require a bit of subtext.  But it seems like Friday should be a bit more about getting excited and prepared and Saturday will be about digging into details.

It seems like the best approach right now is to collect a list of the things that are very "This is programming" examples.  I think we all have personal projects that we've created to help us solve silly little problems (I have a really simple Google widget that shows how much of my car I "own" based on the percentage of my auto loan; right now I can look at it and see that I own everything but the trunk at this point ;-)), or projects we've seen that have really floored us, or we've gotten totally lost in (for me, information visualization stuff really thrills me.)

Then taking those examples, and identifying the basic principles we can point out, seems like the next best step.  It seems like we can answer the question "What is a program?" by showing that it can be a lot of things, from very simple (a print statement, maybe a couple variables and an operation) to incredibly complex (where you'd look at things from a much higher level.)  I know I get overwhelmed by scope a lot of times, but it's also really fun to think "At some point in time, I could totally make this."

-Addie

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Gabriela <gabe...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Sam Livingston-Gray]

Another two fun examples:

- ifttt.com (IF This, Then That). I currently have a rule set up as
follows: IF tomorrow's high temperature is 80F or higher, THEN send
me an email saying "Wear shorts or a kilt".
- Collaborative Diffusion -- okay, this one is definitely Too Much
Geekdom for the talk, but I can't resist sharing the awesomeness. I
like to ask (interested) non-programmers about Pac-Man; specifically,
how they might tell the ghost how to chase the player. It's a fun
topic that almost everybody is familiar with, since the game is now
over three decades(!) old. Here's a link with some videos:
http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu/wiki/Collaborative_Diffusion
And here's a fun link I just ran across that describes, in great
detail, what the actual search strategies of each ghost are (hint:
they don't directly collaborate, but one of the ghosts does consider
the position of one other ghost in its strategy):
http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu/wiki/Collaborative_Diffusion