Passing down the pain. (eurucamp 2015)

The talk I gave at Eurucamp 2015. http://2015.eurucamp.org/

Transcript

1. Passing down the pain Difficulties in teaching software development Ivan Zarea Technical University of Moldova @minivaaan 2015
2. 0. Context Maxim Chumash / chumash.us
3. Outsourcing • Good salaries • Low barrier to entry • Studying for the wrong purpose • Students don’t come to classes
4. Switch the focus • Do not punish bad performers • Provide incentive to study • Immediately applicable
 • Identify what’s important for the industry
5. Things to teach • Skills • Values • Fun } important for the industry
6. 1. Skills
7. What skills do I want my future teammate to have? • Read source code • Debug
 • Choose tools
8. 1.1. Reading source code • Live code in classes • Engage everyone • Give source code with assignments • Show actual code to illustrate a concept
10. 1.1. Example: youtube-dl • Read the documentation • See how to extend youtube-dl • See the Strategy Pattern in action!
11. 1.2. Debugging 9,223,372,036,854,776,000
12. 1.2. Debugging • A relatable & engaging context • Debugging as a whole • Googling skill is a byproduct
13. 1.3. Tool choice • Help students choose a tool • Remove the risk from the choice process • Make sure the arguments are sound
15. Skills I want my future teammate to have • Read source code • Debug and google
 • Choose tools
16. 2. Values
17. What values do I want my future teammate to have? • Appreciate constant progress • Concepts over code • Own the code (design for change)

18. 2.1. Constant progress • Value of TDD • Program with existing code and tests • Program without code, but with tests
 • Write tests, too!
19. 2.1. Example: Query Builder
20. 2.2. Concepts over code public class Logger { private static Logger instance = new Logger(); private Logger(){}
 public static SingleObject getInstance(){ return instance; } } require "singleton" class Logger include Singleton end
21. 2.2. Concepts over code • Prefer concepts and discussions to implementations
 • Be frank about the fact that it’s hard
 • Try not to introduce concepts to everyone
 • Restrict choice to unfamiliar platforms
22. 2.3. Own your code • Design for change
 • Build bigger projects during the course
 • Maintenance is reward
 • Feel the pain
23. 2.3. Example: Markdown • Write a Markdown (subset) parser
 • Know that there will be changes to the requirements
 • Receive changes, update your code
24. Values I want my future teammate to have • Appreciate constant progress • Concepts over code • Own the code (design for change)
25. 3. Fun
26. 3. Add Silliness & Humor • Integrate a chinchilla in the teaching process
 • The chinchilla wrote a bad dating app
 • You have to optimize it
 • That means looking at a lot of chinchillas
31. Things to teach • Skills • Values • Fun • The spirit
32. spirit hacker • Take things apart, put them back • Display curiosity • Encounter issues • Hack teaching The
33. Teach hacking & Hack teaching @minivaaan 2015