How to Program

I was at an T224 Tutorial yesterday when one of my fellow students explained that he had already completed M150 ("Data, Information, and Computers" - or something akin to that) but he said that he found the programming aspects very difficult and realised that he wasn't a programmer. He asked what advice any of us would give him to help him get to grips with programming.

Various bits of advice were contributed. One student, who had been annoyingly vocal during the tutorial and had advice for everyone on every topic, said simply that he should learn Java - but that there was no point in learning how to program because all the programming jobs were going overseas. So, two bit of bad advice in one breath I thought. Another student recommended learning learning Visual Basic "because it what most databases use" (Good grief - where did he get that idea from?).

When I was able to get a word in I explained that, in my opinion, there were two aspects to this. One was 'How do I learn to program in language xyz" and the other is "how do I learn to think like a programmer" (at which point the eyes of the chap who posed the question lit up). I said that I thought the best way to learn how to think like a programmer was to: A) Don't read books on a specific language, but find some generic books on programming - books that talk about ideas, or the general approach that programmers take. B) Read code written by experienced programmers, talk to them about it, get them to explain why they do something in a particular way. When you 'think' programming' then solutions evolve which are not language specific but can be implemented in a number of languages. Once you are comfortable with the ideas of Arrays, or Hashes, or different types of iteration, of functions, and so on then learning a specific language seems to make much more sence.

In the end the questioner said that he wished he hadn't asked the question! - Oh! I didn't mean to put him off - I'm dead keen on people learning to program and I wish that I knew more people who did.

OU - Study Techniques

Having another play around with "Mind Mapping" tools. Something that I looked at last year but did not really take up. So today I downloaded a free Mind Mapping tool called "FreeMind" (I guess they thought long and hard before arriving at that name!). But you know what? I think it might be useful as a note taking tool. I tried an (admittedly non-scientific) experiment today - I read a few pages from the current M359 Block and, instead of scribbling loads of notes in my book, I just added a few nodes to the mind-map, and a few annotations - I managed to record the info that I wanted quite quickly. But the longer term question is "Will it help my learning and revision?". Well, there's only one way to find out!

Freemind can be found at http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

OU - Study Techniques

Well, two months to go on my current course so time to revisit my thoughts on studying techniques. I stated, in an earlier post, that I was using MS Word to write all my notes but that I found that I wrote too much - and spent too much time doing it. Now, several months later, I can confirm that what I said then still holds true today. To give you an idea, my current word document has 120 pages, and something like 15,000 words. And I think to my self, "whats the point"!

The other disadvantage of using software for note taking is that it can only be done sitting in front of the bloody computer (much as I like them!). And you can only read the notes away from the computer if you print the stuff out and carry it around.

So, I can either upgrade my brain to Brain V2.0.23.1, as a replacement for my aging birth brain, or - as seems more likely - I can revert to pen and A4 book. At least with the book I can draw diagrams quickly, make notes in the margins (so that I can find things easily) and draw arrows and addendums quickly and accurately.

And I also have to say that I find the A4 size better to use than the A5 size. A5 is too small for diagrams, networks, spider charts, and the like - although it is easier to carry around. But I think it will be A4 for the future!

M359 - Studying Technique

I prevaricated earlier about which note taking technique to use. On previous courses I have taken copious hand-written notes and found that I very rarely ever went back to them, although the process of note taking seemed to help some of the information sink in.

This time I have forsaken the pen and paper approach and have been making notes in Microsft Word. Trouble is, I have realised that I am making even more notes than ever. This is going to make life harder than it need be I fear - so I have to find a way around this. I have also started to create my own glossary of terms (since one is not supplied as part of the course). For this I am using a good and trusty text editor. I can then use the sort command in the editor so that my glossary stays in alphbetical order. And in case you are wondering which text editor can sort lines, the anser is 'Kedit'. Kedit is based upon, and very similar to, Xedit that is used on IBM VM/CMS systems. I started using Xedit back in 1983 (when, for me, it replaced 'Edgar' its fore-runner). Xedit has always been a favourite of mine - very flexible, a decent language for writing macros (that language being REXX). So the editor is fully extendible, provides all kinds of sorting, manipulation and so on.

M359 - Study Techniques

For each of the courses that I have done so far, I have used slightly differeing techniques for studying - and I was reviewing some of these yesterday. One thing I noticed that was common to all the techniques is that I tend to write down far to many things. I was looking at my notes for M206 that I did a couple of years ago and see that I managed to fill two A4 hardbound books with everything you could think of (and more). But I am not sure that it helped - especially at revision time - too much to take in, drowning in data but lacking in concise and clear information. In fact, when I studied MU120 I definitely found it hard to use my notes.

So, what to do? Two choices I guess. I could really cut down on my note taking, or, I could produce some kind of index to all my notes.

I think I favour the former approach for two reasons - one is that it takes so long to make all these notes, and thats time that could be better spent doing practical work and, secondly, having spent so much time making notes, I'm not sure that I want to spend even more time creating indexes. Unless I can find some good note taking software that will doing my indexing for me.

Watch this space....